The latest book for the BlogHer Book Club is The Care & Handling of Roses with Thorns by Margaret Dilloway. This is the second book we’ve read by Dilloway, the first was How to Be an American Housewife, which I really liked quite a bit. Dilloway has a way of making her characters so rich, it’s as if she’s layering them like a painting, one stroke at a time.

The main character in The Care & Handling of Roses with Thorns is Galilee “Gal” Garner. Her name is as awkward as she is. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, she’s just one of those people who are in their own routine, like to do things a certain way, and has a wicked dry sense of humor. Gal is most comfortable in her greenhouse, where she cultivates roses. When she not in working with her roses, she is a high school biology teacher. Gal is also a long-time suffer of kidney disease and receives dialysis while she waits for a kidney transplant. She’s really not very likeable until her niece, who is teen, pops into her life and the two of them need to learn how to live with each other.

If you loved How to Be an American Housewife you will definitely want to read this book. I enjoyed it.