Book Review: Rose by Rami Ungar

Rose wakes to find herself in a greenhouse, with no memory of how she got there, and actual roses growing out of her head. What’s a girl to do?

Keeping Rose company is her boyfriend, Paris, who claims to have the answers to Rose’s predicament, but the problem is that Rose can’t remember him either, and as her condition worsens and she begins to see things – or is that remember? – Rose realises that her situation is worse than she could possibly have imagined.

Written in first person, present tense, Rose’s story is interesting and well told. Her physical changes are well described, imaginative and intriguing. However, I would describe this book more as a thriller than a Kafkaesque nightmare.

I thought “Rose” was going to be an exploration of what it would be like to turn into a plant, and how others treat you and react to you when you undergo such a significant transformation. However, it wasn’t described as intimately as I would have liked, which left me slightly disappointed.

Where “Rose” is Kafkaesque is in its analogy for how women are supposed to be beautiful possessions and objects of desirability (like a rose without the thorns).