Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

An unexpectedly emotional read; I expected something a bit lighter but the story was full of sorrow and Willow's situation is heartbreaking. I was willing for her to realise how much her dad loved her, and to see how Rosie was not the perfect mother she thought she was. The book was very easy to read, and I particularly enjoyed the chapters that charted how Rosie and Rex met, and how the sheen started to leave their relationship.

Willow likes to spend time with her mother Rosie, listening to music, painting, and eating candy and pizza. What Willow doesn't like is spending time at her father's house where, with his rules and checklists, she doesn't have any fun. Rosie and Rex met twelve years earlier and, even though they were completely the opposite - she was carefree and saw life with colour, he planned everything ahead and stuck to his rules - they fell completely in love with each other. But after leaving New York for Virginia, getting married, having Willow, and then another child, Asher, things started to go completely wrong until their marriage ended. Rex wishes that Willow would love him as she loves her mother, Rosie wishes to emerge from her state of depression and be there for her children, Willow just wants to be her own person without criticism from her father or the other children at school.

I started reading this novel thinking that it would an easy and light novel about a child and her odd mother, but it turned out to be an emotional and superb novel about love, about the lengths parents would go for their children, about bullying, about addiction and depression. The story is heartbreaking and I shed a few tears at the end, but it's worth it. With its realistic and likable characters and its intense and captivating plot, this novel is a must-read.

Unfortunately I cannot give a true review of this, as I did not finish it. I read the first hundred pages, and was not looking forward to have to read any further as I was rather bored with it already. Nothing much had happened, apart from hearing the same things about the mother, the father and the children. Not for me.

Rosie Colored Glasses,  Brianna Wolfson

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: General Fiction

I found this book hard going in that so much of it is like reading a long monologue of thoughts, mostly willows. I so felt for that poor girl, she's going to need lots of help to cope with the trauma her parents have put her and Asher through. He's a cute boy but Rosie shields him from much of the hurt, nurturing and protecting him from his own parents.
The parenting they received from Rex was safe but needed more affection, but Rosie's parenting, full of on-the-surface affection was irresponsible at best, incredibly dangerous at worst. That they survived it was more a testament to Willow's resourcefulness that their parents.

I didn't like Rosie, as a single lady she wasn't carefree, more careless. She was single-minded, only what she wanted to happen was allowed to happen, and she shaped her world that way. It did make me wonder why she was like that, how she survived financially when she walked out of jobs at whim...I guess my practical minded self always figures on things like that. In the real world we just can't do that and still have a roof over our heads, warmth, food etc.
I didn't much like Rex either, so rigid and set in his ways. There are people like him though, and once more there's usually something in their upbringing that has made them have this irrational need for total control.
You couldn't have found two more opposite people. I could see they had an attraction for each other, someone so different from themselves but I reckon a few dates where Rosie doesn't turn up, or is late, or dressed unsuitably, and where Rex annoys her as he's too pompous, too overbearing and that would be the end of them.
I just can't see how they'd last more than a few weeks. But they do, and have two precious kids and that's where the story gets so sad. The kids have to bear the results.

Rosie's parenting means No Rules, just Fun all the Way, and Rex, well, he seems to feel he needs to make up for it by having Rules, Lists, and No Fun. Rosie's is all kisses, kisses, kisses and Rex doesn't seem to know how to show affection. I could see he cared for the kids, loved them in his way, and I just can't imagine in that case that he wouldn't give them a hug and kiss, even if only sporadically.

Of course the spiral of two such different parenting styles cause issues for the kids, and it was heartbreaking seeing it happen. I disliked Rosie when she was single, but she wasn't hurting anyone ( except the poor saps who employed her), but as a parent she was a disgrace. It looks like all fun, but really its just Rosie doing what she wants, to be a parent that's loved, to be a friend to her kids, and she's not doing them any favours, and her behaviour becomes dangerous at times. Anyone who's stood out at school for being different will know how cruel kids can be, I was a skinny kids, glasses, dark skin tone and that set me up for bullies. Nothing to be done about that, but Willow and Asher, Rosie turned them into victims by her careless parenting.
Things get harder for Rosie to deal with, she's struggling with life before she has the kids and after, and then the divorce, well, its hard. I felt for her, she was clearly depressed, but dealing with it by getting more and more OTT, more manic, more outrageous in what she does with the kids.
I was furious at her way of coping, who does that when they love their kids? To me it felt Rosie was a show parent, wanted them and others to see her as fun, but didn't really care enough about them to deal with her issues, once more it was Rosie's needs that superceded everyone else. You just know its leading to disaster....and it does, big time.

 Stars: Two and a half, a story I struggled to believe in, just couldn't see Rex and Rosie getting past a few early dates. It had some harrowing events, some heartbreaking moments. I wouldn't call it whimsical, that suggests light-hearted and this is anything but. Its well written but not want I want to relax with.
ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers