I really liked this book. The writing style was quirky but good. Though set up as a mystery, it was also funny and entertaining. The author does a great job on portraying older people in society, how they are viewed by the younger generations and how they themselves feel. At the same time she also shows us the young "connected" generation, all in an entertaining manner. Rose wakes up in a Memory Care Unit and has no recollection how she got there. Together with her granddaughter and sister they try to work out was has happened to Rose and why she can't remember.

This was a great story, is Rose crazy, or not. This story really makes you think about what happens when we get old., and how we are viewed by society and our families. This was different that the other Nevada Barr books I have read, but I loved it just the same.

Nevada Barr gives readers Rose, a woman in her sixties in a care facility. Rose's voice is understandably confused at the start of the novel, it clears as her drug induced fog clears. The supporting characters are engaging and interesting. The story itself is entertaining. I guess I just found it difficult to reconcile Rose's adventures and behavior with her age and abilities. I would definitely read more form Nevada Barr.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

Not one of Nevada Barr's usual mysteries with Anna Pigeon. This story has a slow start, but picks up speed. Rose, or Gigi, as her granddaughter, Mel, calls her, has escaped from a nursing home where she is being drugged. Her mind is'heading' toward normal, but it is hard to tell what is Rose's normal as she has unique thoughts, wears unusual clothes, and looks at the world differently. Question is why is she being drugged, why is someone trying to kill her? Rose has many adventures along the way to solving this mystery. See if you can figure it out before the end.

Old, feisty Rose has dementia and can't piece together how she ended up in the mental unit of a nursing home - and she plans to get away as soon and as fast as she can. She can't shake that feeling that someone is out to get her and she won't stop until she figures it out.
I enjoyed the book although it was a little slow-going for me. I enjoyed the plot but it dragged on for the most part!
Thanks to Nevada Barr, Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

A thoroughly enjoyable book, introducing us to Rose, a 60ish widow who has been put in a nursing home Alzheimer ward by her family. Her struggle to escape this is entertaining and darkly humorous, receiving help from not only her granddaughter but a host of other characters including her sister. Well written and compelling.

‏I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

When I selected Nevada Barr's latest, What Rose Forgot, I did not realize how difficult it would be for me to read it. My mother-in-law, Rose, had memory issues and forgot...well, almost everyone. The premise of the story is Rose, a 60ish-year-old grandmother wakes from a mental fog to discover she was placed in a memory care unit of a nursing home. No one believes Rose so, with the help of her sister, granddaughter and her granddaughter's friend, so struggles to figure out who is responsible.

Having experienced what my Rose struggled through I understand why no one believed Rose. Many of the ways the group works to prove Rose is sane requires a suspension of disbelief. After escaping the nursing home, she sneaks back in to have her "not a hacker" sister hack into the computer files. She takes time to meditate while people are trying to kill her. Lastly, after all of the physical activities she is forced to do, she is able to continue doing more of them without too much pain.

Still, the story was enjoyable. I have added several of Nevada Barr's books, especially her Anna Pigeon mystery series, to my "want to read" list.

This 200-word review was published on Philomathinphila.com on 2/9/20.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for the early copy!

I decided to put down this thriller because I did not connect with the writing style.

Not sure what I read.

It’s quite possible that my review copy (ebook) was not quite finished or was missing key pieces because no matter how carefully I read, the story was disjointed. Very disjointed. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on it if it’s a book you’ve read.

From what I could gather, Rose wakes up in a hospital unit which specializes in Alzheimer’s. She is heavily drugged and overhears the nurses talking about how she “might not make it” and from the comments she overhears, she can tell that no one really cares if she does. She decides to make her escape.

This is where it gets fuzzy. She leaves because she does not have Alzheimer’s and fears for her life but no where in the version I read does it explain why someone put her there. However, her escape and how she manages to turn the tables is quite entertaining. She enlists her sister and her young, thirteen-year-old granddaughter to help her and this kid is delightful.

As you can tell, I don’t think I can accurately review this book because it seriously feels as if chapters were missing. Looking at the print there doesn’t appear to be any obvious issues. No dangling sentences or encrypted anything but the story made absolutely no sense.

Minotaur Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of What Rose Forgot. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Rose Dennis wakes up in a hospital gown, confused as to where she is and what has happened to her. Acutely aware that something is not right, Rose is determined to figure out why she was committed to an Alzheimer's Unit in a nursing home. With the help of her sister and her granddaughter, will Rose remember what she forgot?

The author captures the confusion that Rose has when she is disoriented quite well, but the rest of the story is not as successful. For me, this book suffers from a lack of identity. It is supposed to be a mystery, seen through the eyes of a woman who is drugged to the gills, not a screwball comedy. Without getting into too much detail, all I can say is that I could not have done half of what Rose did, despite the fact that I am more than fifteen years younger. In her attempt to make Rose quirky, yet relatable, Nevada Barr loses sight of the serious nature of this book. I read hundreds of books every year and it is never a good sign to me when I cannot wait for it to end. For these reasons, I would be hesitant to recommend What Rose Forgot to other readers.

This book is a little scary at how easily something like this could happen. While reading the book knowing that it wasn't true it made me think about how this could happen with an elderly person. There were parts of the book that were a little extreme like someone of that age climbing on the roof of the house stabbing someone was a little like "really" I don't see that happening.

I did really like the book and look forward to reading more from this author.

I really enjoyed this book! It had a lot of suspense and drama. I really liked how it had both an older character and a younger character working together.

This is one of the best domestic thrillers I've read in quite a while. On the first page, a woman wakes up alone in the bushes, wearing only a hospital gown and unaware of where she is and how she got there. It's only a few minutes before a helpful bystander returns her to the memory care unit. Rose has no memory of the facility, no idea how she came to be a patient there. They tell Rose that she suffers from dementia, but that can't be right. Her mind is clear and becoming clearer as she hides her pills instead of swallowing them. She can't ask for help because her claims sound like the ramblings of a dementia patient, but she can't stay where she is, not after hearing someone in the hall saying that she's not likely to last the week.



The more I learned about Rose's life before she found herself lost and disoriented in the bushes outside the memory care unit, the more I liked her and wanted her to escape her current situation. I did find her family tree more than a little confusing and could have done without the current political references (especially a really obscure one that I had to look up to figure out what the characters were talking about -- it turns out that you don't need to know what they're talking about) but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable read that kept me turning pages.

I’m trying out more mystery authors this year, and what reeled me in for this book was the premise and the senior character, something that we don’t see enough of. And the cover is definitely dreamy!

The narrative grabbed me easily and I identified with Rose’s troubles right away. However, as the clues and action came out, I really found they weren’t adding up, and that pulled me out of the story. One month generally doesn’t turn for individuals in their sixties into a wasted skeleton, and two days away doesn’t restore their powers so entirely. Once she gets to her home, all attempt at reality seems to go out the window in a very literal sense and the roof chase becomes straight comedy. But really, really unlikely after the condition she was in only days before. There were other really unrealistic scenes, also laughably a “try not to breathe at all” followed by two pages of quick dialogue.

I felt like the emotions of the scenarios were really well-written and I absolutely loved the scenes with her and her granddaughter and young Royal. These were the best parts of the book. I also really appreciated that there were zero sex scenes and no innuendo.

Two other things really bugged me. I wasn’t aware I was picking up Buddhist fiction. From the 30% point on, the mentions of Rose’s Buddhist beliefs grow and grow until they are even applied as needful to the society around her, which takes it well beyond mere characterization. Second, having my entertainment become political is a huge pet peeve, and in this case it was all sorts of politics I dislike, which only made it worse. The politics did not change the plot in any way. They were jibes thrown in for free that only annoyed. Cheap shots at the President, never tasteful no matter who’s in office; immigration; Planned Parenthood (I could not make sense, if I tried, of “values” that worry about karma, then donate 1/3 of a fortune to saving dogs and 2/3 to killing babies to get rid of global overpopulation....seriously....that’s not a religion of peace). The final thing that irked me was how Rose broke the law repeatedly and had no consequences (even evidently getting away with perjury).

There is some profanity and a couple s* before the halfway mark, which at least was infrequent, but then the bad guys had to show how bad they were by cursing up a blue storm, and first I dislike the swearing and second, that’s a lazy way to characterize bad guys.

While I did finish the book, I won’t be picking up another Barr mystery.

Thanks to the publisher for a free reading copy. A favorable review was not required.

This is the first book I’ve read by Nevada Barr and it certainly won’t be the last. Rose wakes up in a drug induced stupor in a nursing home. Her family felt she belonged there because she had Alzheimer’s. Her spunk and tenacity to prove her family wrong takes her though a roller coaster ride of adventures...some funny and some dangerous. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and when you think you know the full story, guess again! Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This one is a rollercoaster ride for sure! Can you imagine waking up in a nursing home being told you have been committed for Alzheimer’s? But you are perfectly healthy. Talk about a new level of hell. Rose is tough though! It is insane what she goes through and knowing she is in her mid to late sixties, you will be cheering her on through this whole story.

When Rose wakes up and hears someone saying "she won't last the week" , she has no idea what's going on. Knowing she's been having a rough time since her husband died she doesn't understand where she is or who put her there but she's determined she's not staying.
The story of Rose is told with witt and compassion. She's a real character and is loved by all but a few. A unique story with a surprise ending.

This one was odd. There were certain aspects of its oddity that I enjoyed; Rose for example was an interesting, quirky, unique main character. There were other aspects that detracted from the story.

The middle was incredibly slow and I kept waiting for them to talk about the obvious reason all of it was happening but it didn’t get brought up till the very end. I found the sister Marion to be superfluous and some of the detours to be just too wacky but overall it was a fairly enjoyable story.

3.5 stars

i loved this book.
It is unique, and a fast read.
I have never read any of Barr's books but I am now a fan.

In Nevada Barr's What Rose Forgot, this startling thriller focuses on dementia and a dangerous type of elder care. When Rose Dennis wakes up in a hospital, her mind's foggy in a haze, and didn't know where she was. She learns she's been put into Longwood Institute's Memory Care Unit for demented patients. When she comes to, she learns about Longwood, plans to escape, and hides out with her granddaughter Melanie. After her escape were leaked onto the news, someone's set out to kill Rose. And it's up to Rose and Mel to find out what's really going on and who wanted her dead. With her close family members suspicious, (except for Mel), she plans to find out what she knows about Longwood and a long line of elder abuse-type deaths to make extra money. As Rose sleuths around for clues, she learns more about Longwood and torments Nurse Karen to retrieve answers and to rescue a friend from the same unit. As soon as she makes a break for it, Rose later learns who wanted her to die and why in a life-and-death situation she needs to fight to the finish in the end.