What do readers think of In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault? Write your own review.

If your teenage years were perplexing ones, then this novel shows you were not alone. While alternating time frames can be disconcerting in some novels, they help support who these characters were and have become. It is a tough book because it has not been a happy time for them and, in the end, it is not clear that the solving the mystery of Rose's disappearance will make a difference. A melancholy book but worth reading if you want to share the lives of your novel's charaters from either the adult or teen perspective. I would recommend the book and would read it again.

It caught my attention. I could see what mystery was going to be and was interested. I like secrets shrouded in the past. The writing was good. HOWEVER! The novel was too long! The same ground was covered again and again. Good editing would have tightened this up and made it better. I kept reading because I did want the solution. But the heroine did not engage my affections, so I wouldn't give it a very good rating.

All in all, this book was worth reading--even though it felt as though the author let the story get away from her. Take the title, for instance; it means nothing to the reader until the last few chapters, and then it just feels forced. The mystery surrounding Rose's disappearance seemed to be going one way in the beginning, and then took a sudden turn fateful fake-feeling turn toward the end. A shame, because the beginning was so good and the characters real...

Couldn't really find enough to say the book was good. Would appeal more to youth readers, which I'm sure is the intended market. Enjoyed the back and forth from 1990, when Rose (Charlotte and Nora's babysitter) disappeared to 2006 when Charlotte returned home to resolve Rose's disappearance. Repeated reference to Charlotte's "black books" became wearisome and had no tie in. Okay reading but not very satisfying to me.

This book is not what I expected – a mystery/thriller. It is more of a coming of age story and would probably be more appealing to high school/young adult readers. I found it slow moving at times and did not care a lot about the characters or the outcome. It is not a bad book, but certainly not above average.

This isn't a bad book but for me it wasn't above average. It was very slow moving in plot and not quite the mystery I had expected. Still I found the discussions of childhood by the main characters to be of some interest. I believe a book club would really be able to to get into this because we all have those memories and the changes adulthood brought. I think that young adults say from 20's up would find this book of interest simply because it does seem to generate thoughts of the past or at least it did in my case. You have friends you grew up with but lost touch with. The Rose of the title is the center point of it all.

I suppose I expected more of a mystery but in truth this is a story about growing up and how we change or in some cases don't change so much and the secrets we keep. I would have preferred a faster pace but I think this book was written to be the way it is in order to make readers look at their own past and school days.

Rose Notes wasn't quite the psychological thriller that I was expecting. I enjoyed the back and forth of the present and past, and being a child of the 80s I enjoyed the references to that era. I also enjoyed the psychology of the person you are as a child versus the person you are as an adult. The book got me thinking about old high school friends whom I've lost touch with and if it's possible to ever reclaim that friendship. But the suspense wasn't quite there in the book. There were red herrings which weren't all that convincing and while I didn't figure out the "who done it" I wasn't left gasping at each chapter or on the edge of my seat. The book does provide a "what would you do" kind of atmosphere, but because it comes at the end, I don't know how much time a reader would spend thinking about it.

I liked half of this book and really disliked the other half. The book went back and forth between 1990 and 2006. As the book went on I found myself dreading the 1990 story. It was a good mystery, but I think the 1990 story could have been told in the first two or three chapters. The characters were much more interesting as adults. Maybe I missed something but frankly I rushed through the flashbacks to get to the parts that took place in the present.