The Children of the Roses - Hardcover

Warren Adler

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402201974 ISBN 13: 9781402201974

Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc Landmark, 2004

Synopsis

The children in The War of the Roses were determined not to repeat the devastation, destruction and self-immolation engendered by their parents, which were evoked in that bestselling novel and then the most famous movie ever made about divorce.

In The Children of the Roses, Josh marries Victoria for evermore, and his hugely overweight, happy-go-lucky sister Evie finds pleasure at the trough and through a series of live-in lovers. But in all-too-human, unpredictable and often hilarious turns, the betrayals begin.

Soon Josh and Victoria are on their way to their own form of internecine warfare and disaster. Victoria's demonic and male-hating mother and the overstuffed and ever-sympathetic Evie are their constant counterfoils. Antagonists include a suave headmaster, who turns out to be a relentless sexual predator, and a blackmailing husband. The couple's children, Michael and little Emily, engineer some stunning surprises of their own that will forever change their parents' wayward ways. From noted storyteller Warren Adler, The Children of the Roses is an absolute page-turner.

"A funny new spin on dysfunctional family life-engrossing, unpredictable and touching."--Sidney Sheldon

About this title

About the Author

Warren Adler is the author of 17 novels. Two of his works, The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, were made into major motion pictures. He lives in New York.

Reviews

Adler recreates the epic marital bickering that made the original War of the Roses(1989) such juicy movie material, but this tepid sequel pales despite the potential offered by the troubled marriage of Josh Rose, the son of the spouses who were killed by a falling chandelier after squabbling their way through the first book. Josh has all the trappings of success-a satisfying job as creative director of a Manhattan ad agency, two beautiful children and a gorgeous albeit icy wife, Victoria, a former lawyer who was also damaged by her parent's bitter divorce. His stability is threatened, however, when he succumbs to the temptations of his chief designer, a married woman named Angela Bocci whose passion for risque semi-public sex leads to a hot affair. Josh manages to hide his infidelity from Victoria as the couple struggle to keep their 11-year-old son, Michael, from being thrown out of an elite private school for a petty thievery incident. But all is lost when Angela's spouse, Dominic, tries to use the affair to blackmail Josh before revealing Josh's infidelity to Victoria, who is blackmailed into a separate series of erotic shenanigans by Michael's diabolical headmaster. Adler scores points with sly irony in the early infidelity chapters, but the story flattens when Angela demands a divorce and the couple's joint custody experiment begins. The generic bickering leads to an outrageous climax in which a near-tragic house fire causes the couple to rethink their separation; the sappy, over-the-top ending comes off as a half-baked attempt to outdo the savage humor of the original. There are some funny moments as Adler sets up his marital chess pieces, but this follow-up succumbs to sequelitis.
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In War of the Roses (1986), Adler set the ultimate standard for dysfunctional families. Now in his long-awaited sequel, the sins of the father are visited upon the next generation of Rose offspring. Son Josh and his sister, Evie, were scarred for life by their parents' vindictive battles and bizarre deaths. For her part, Evie seeks solace in food and sex. In his marriage to Victoria, a woman with her own matched set of emotional baggage, Josh has tried to walk the straight-and-narrow as a model husband and father. But blood will tell, and when Victoria discovers Josh's tawdry office romance . . . you guessed it: a divorce and custody battle ensue. But as acrimonious as relations between Josh and Victoria become, his children are the ones who take over the destruction department right where their grandparents left off. Adultery, blackmail, rape, and arson all factor into the downfall of the next crop of Roses, yet Adler's gift is to turn these outwardly bleak scenarios into outrageously appealing black comedy. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc Landmark
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1402201974
• ISBN 13: 9781402201974
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304