The Quick Cut: A sixty year old woman wakes up to find she's been committed to the Memory Care Unit of a nursing home with the caretakers saying she won't last the week. All hell breaks loose when she breaks out dedicated to finding out the truth.

A Real Review:
Thank you to St Martin's Press for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

How would you feel if you woke up one day to find the life you had gone? Disappearing like water vapor, the person you are feels like someone 100% different than what everyone else claims. It's like being trapped in a nightmare you can't wake up from. This is the reality that Rose comes to.

Rose is a strong, fierce, yoga-doing, meditating grandmother. That is, until her husband died and everyone in her life watched her quickly deteriorate to the point of requiring care at a nursing home. However, when Rose gets the stomach flu there and ends up throwing up all her meds, a sudden mental clarity hits her along with the new limited reality. When the nursing home staff say that Rose will die within the week, Rose begins a journey to escape the facility and discover the truth of what is happening to her.

My love for Nevada Barr has been a long lasting one: I've been reading her Anna Pigeon series since I was in high school (it's the reason I've been to so many national parks!). She has such a talent to set a stage and slowly unravel a tale. This story continues that legacy with her craft.

Rose is so likeable with ingenuity, drive, and fierceness. It's also impressive how well she could make the various scenarios work while dodging the police and nursing home staff. She has people who care, but that she keeps at an arms length with her independence that put her in a place to be taken advantage of.

It did get a bit slow in the middle, but beyond that - my only complaint is that you do have to uncheck your reality meter on this book. Between the kids involvement, amount of controversy, and the final reveal, it's a tough pill to swallow that this could happen.

An amazing story that requires a creative headspace to believe.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5

Thank you netgalley for the advance copy of this title in exchange for my honest review/opinion. This was an exciting book! I really liked the storyline, as the characters were different than other mystery novels. Rose was a fun protagonist and i highly recommend this title! Author is a talented writer.

This story was a departure from MS. Barr’s usual stories. I have enjoyed many of her other novels over the years. This one was different. The writing as usual was good and the story line flowed nicely. But I not sure I liked the plot. Rose is in her 60s and wakes up in a home for Alzheimer’s. something is going on and she escapes to find out what. It was farfetched. I did read it and thought all and all it was okay.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced Reader Copy of this book thank you Net Galley

Bring familiar with the author, I really wanted to like this one more than I did. It kept me interested enough to finish it, but throughout the book it felt as though Barr was trying too hard. Odd details were thrown in in a way that took me out of the story. Some scenes are just too far fetched to be believable. In the end, it was okay - not horrible but not stellar either.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

When Rose awakes she is confused. She feels weak, old. She doesn't remember how she got here, in a nursing home for old people who lost their minds. In a moment of clarity she makes a plan to escape - and succeeds. With the help of her sister and her granddaughter she unravels the mystery of what happened to her.
Interesting and well written story that had a bit too much of esoteric stuff in it to reel me in completely.

Complicated, beautiful and sad yet Rose is always powerful. Much of the book had to do with the circumstances leading to the exciting, thriller type book. It was a bit hard to believe rose underwent the beating she had and be alive. The last paragraph is fabulous!
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for giving me this arc

This is the story of Rose Dennis, a grandmother in her sixties, who wakes up in an Alzheimer unit at a nursing home. But Rose’s mind is fine, who has committed her is the question?… She does not linger with whom, what and the how, and soon a plan emerge: avoid all medication and stage an escape…. Rose on the lam is at the heart of this story and following one crazy lady trying to find who put her away is sometime funny and sometime unbelievable…...

This sounded like an interesting read and it did for the first few chapters then it got weird and ridiculous. Elderly woman climbing on a roof, sliding down the tiles, jumping out windows, kung-fu Jane at her best was not what I thought this book was all about. Some may think her action was hilarious I did not. I was hoping to see through the voice and eyes of Rose the issues of aging and dementia and how we react and treat them. I also wanted to know what a person of sound mind may do when they are wrongly housed in a nursing home. “What Rose Forgot” turned out to be a comedy at its worst…maybe it was the serious subject taken lightly that didn’t work for me. The characterization was cartoonish and I never connected with any of them. This story wasn’t my cup of tea and by far. I wanted to abandon this story many times but I stuck with it till the end…definitely not for me but it may be for you….a lot of readers have enjoyed it….

I really loved the characters in this story, the story line was very well written and the plot was exceptional. I highly recommend giving this book a read. The suspense continued start to finish and i found this one hard to put down. The synopsis for this book is accurate but it does not do it justice. A+

The blurb for this book led me to believe it was a thriller, and while it is, it's also laugh-out-loud hilarious at times. Outrageous action and larger than life characters make this a satisfying read.

When Rose, a wealthy older woman, finds herself living in a memory care unit, she is confused as to how she arrived there and why she is there. Rose devises a plan and escapes the memory care unit. She enlists the help of her granddaughter, and her friend, to discover the dark secrets about the memory care unit and the staff. It was fun to follow yoga-loving Rose on her quest to find the truth. The author cleverly does not reveal if Rose has dementia until the end of the book when all of the pieces come together. This book was a great read that kept me engaged. I particularly liked that the protagonist was a strong older adult.

Nevada Barr gives us a new, unique character in "What Rose Forgot," Rose Dennis. After Rose wakes up to discover she is a nursing home patient, with no memory of when that happened. She and late husband had recently moved to North Carolina to be near his son and granddaughter. Rose loves Mel as though she were her own granddaughter and as she begins to remember, she enlists the help of Mel and her friend Royal to escape the nursing home.

Rose questions her own sanity but becomes positive she is just sad about her husband's recent death and that foul play is involved. But she can't figure out why. She returns to her own home, only to be attacked there. Rose and her 'henchmen,' along with her recluse/computer whiz sister do some sleuthing to try to learn the reason why Rose is being gas-lighted and who is after. A few somewhat comic twists and turns make this book a fun ride.

Dr. Cheryl Youse

First of all, I have always enjoyed this author. I was excited to read something different from the series and style she is known for. With that said, I have to admit that I would not have recognized this book as her writing. It didn’t just seem a change in style...the quality was far different. This story had great promise and an intriguing plot, but it overall fell flat for me. Perhaps the “weakened granny does Mission Impossible” was just too implausible for me to warm to. Not bad, overall, just not the quality of adventure I would expect from this talented writer.

I had a hard time getting into this book. My mom does have Alzheimer’s and is in a facility in FL so I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. I looked at the reviews and all were 4-5 stars. I had gotten to 50% and could not finish. I did not connect with the characters or the story line for that matter. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this complimentary book. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a stand-alone by Nevada Barr with a great plot. Good mystery and at times tongue in cheek funny, at other times, laugh out loud funny. The relationship between Rose and her granddaughter defies age, as you sometimes wonder who’s the elder here. I truly hope Rose and Mel team up again to solve mysteries and this becomes the start of a great series, because I hate to leave these characters behind.
Rose lives in a pill induced fog in a dementia unit, wondering how this came to be. After hiding her pills and not taking them she successfully escapes a second time realizing she doesn’t have dementia at all. Someone put her there and intended she would die shortly, but her granddaughter and sister don’t believe her, until she thwarts an attempt on her life. Banding together in a zany way they work to discover who is behind the coverup, and how deep does it go

"Accepting what is doesn't mean giving the nod to ongoing evil."
Rose Dennis is my hero!
She has been sent to a long term care facility by her family with a diagnosis of sudden onset dementia. When and how did this happen?
Rose cannot figure out why she is there and when she overhears a nurse saying "she may not even make it through the week." realizes it is time to "check out" of this crazy place!
Rose is determined to right the wrongs of both herself and others that are in this obnoxious predicament.

It is a wonderful, entertaining journey you will not want to miss!
Rose's clever schemes, planning and assistants make for an amazing mystery that you will applaud and hold your breath as they attempt to beat the system!
Definitely a winner!

Rose Dennis wakes up in a hospital gown, her brain in a fog, only to discover that she's been committed to an Alzheimer's Unit in a nursing home. With no memory of how she ended up in this position, Rose is sure that something is very wrong. When she overhears one of the administrators saying about her that she's "not making it through the week," Rose is convinced that if she's to survive, she has to get out of the nursing home. She avoids taking her medication, putting on a show for the aides, then stages her escape.

The only problem is—how does she convince anyone that she's not actually demented? Her relatives were the ones to commit her, all the legal papers were drawn up, the authorities are on the side of the nursing home, and even she isn't sure she sounds completely sane. But any lingering doubt Rose herself might have had is erased when a would-be killer shows up in her house in the middle of the night. Now Rose knows that someone is determined to get rid of her.

With the help of her computer hacker/recluse sister Marion, thirteen-year-old granddaughter Mel, and Mel's friend Royal, Rose begins to gather her strength and fight back—to find out who is after her and take back control of her own life. But someone out there is still determined to kill Rose, and they're holding all the cards.

What a gripping book. Amnesia or Alzheimer’s? Rose is a fighter and with her family and friends, she fights to survive. I was rooting for Rose. This was a hell of a good book.

I really loved how this book gave you a real view of just how frightening it would be to wake up and realize you are in a memory care center. What would you do? How could you get out of a place for people who have lost their memory, yet yours is just fine? How do you figure out how you got their?

This is a really fun read where Alice and Mel, teenager granddaughter work together to unravel Alice’s situation.

What Rose Forgot is a fabulous unique thriller. I loved this book and could not put it down.I have a new favorite author to add to my list.

This was my first Nevada Barr book, and boy, was I impressed! It's loaded with action, humor and suspense (which must have been hard to develop with an assisted living facility as the backdrop). I fell in love with the main character, Rose. She's tenacious, smart, and just wily and unconventional enough to save her own life under quite adverse circumstances. The story was riveting; I had to put the book down several times just to savor the experience and make it last longer. And it was genius to include her young teenage grand daughter Mel as her main sidekick. This smart, sassy and resourceful girl helps keep things believable and grounded and moves the story along nicely.

I truly appreciated the author and publisher taking a chance on a book with a 60-ish female main character. There are SO MANY books out there with lovely teen, 20- and 30-something year old women leads; it's as if women over 50 couldn't possibly be doing anything interesting (unless they're an evil villain or sympathetic supporting character) that's not related to being a mother/wife/support figure for their families.

In any case, I loved this book! Please please please bring on more like it!

I'm a fan of Nevada Barr, and over the years have read every one of her Anna Pigeon books, set in the U.S. national parks. The basic issues in this new novel -- aging and dementia, and how we view, react to and treat them -- is so different from those in Barr's long-running series that at first it felt like a different writer entirely.

As the story unfolded, however, the author's trademark humor and suspense were on full display. This book is a thriller, yet there are many, many chuckles, and some heartwarming inter-generational action. I liked Rose's pluck. Her almost-70-year-old body held her back very little (thanks to all that yoga!), and her spirit not at all.

In the end, Rose uncovers a sinister plot largely because she out-thinks the bad guys (and also has an almost-hacker sister and a couple of teenagers she can call on) -- but this is also a very physical book. Rose is no sedate, shrinking violet. Also, What Rose Forget is set firmly in the 2nd decade of the 21st century, with the aforementioned hacking and sophisticated use of smart phones.

Back to the book's basic issues: It's not only Rose's menacing, stop-at-nothing adversaries that are scary. There is the whole terrifying question of our eventual mental decline, and how easily we each could be gaslighted and exploited.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance readers copy.