Rosie and Skate

by Beth Bauman and Beth Ann Bauman

Book Overview

"The novel uses the empty storefronts and windy beaches of autumn to explore loss, confusion and love." --The New York Times Book Review. It's off-season at the Jersey shore. The boardwalk belongs to the locals--including Rosie and Skate, sisters who are a year apart in age but couldn't be more different. Rosie's fifteen, shy, and waiting for her life to begin. Skate, sixteen, is tougher and knows what she wants. Readers will be totally caught up...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038573736X
• ISBN13: 9780385737364
• Release Date: April 2011
• Publisher: Ember
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

This is a YA winner!

Rosie and Skate are two very different teenage sisters who are each trying in her own way to make the best of the hand they've been dealt. Their alcoholic father is currently in jail. Stability and money are in short supply, despite the efforts of their cousin Angie to provide a home for them at the Jersey shore. Both girls are learning about the joys and sorrows of relationships with boys. But through it all, there is the certainty that these girls love and care about each other. Beth Ann Bauman has written a believable and very readable novel that can be enjoyed by an adult just as much as it would be by a teen, because its themes are timeless and its voice is true.

True, through and through

I am another adult reader who read Rosie and Skate, and I loved it. This is exactly the kind of book I yearned for when I was young and turning to books to satisfy my hunger to understand how the world of grown up mysteries of life and love worked, and to find out just how other families lived. (BTW I still turn to literature for this!) Author Beth Ann Bauman, has skillfully created two likable young characters facing some very painful grownup level problems (a single father who struggles with addiction, the agony of a long distance love relationship), and placed them in the context of a constellation of caring if imperfect adults. The girls' paths are at times uncomfortable to watch, as you wish for a gentler life for Rosie and Skate, but the story never strays from the believable. The resolution is ultimately hopeful and redemptive - but in a very fitting, subtle way that doesn't contradict the gently gritty mood of the overall story. I also must comment on the tone of the book - it's just exquisite, the reader is left with a lingering sense of beauty, hopefulness and forlornness, all at the same time, which mirrors what it's like to be at the shore off-season (the setting of the book). Swept clean, lonely (but not necessarily in a bad way), limitless. The sensation that remains is the paradoxically cozy feeling of being a small person in a big world.

Notes of a not-so-Young Adult

It's safe to say that -- knowing no teenagers, and having only the dimmest recollection of ever having been one -- I didn't pick up this book because I thought I would relate to the characters. I read it because Bauman's short-story collection, "Beautiful Girls", is a gem, and it left me eager to read anything she writes. Rosie and Skate does not disappoint; if it weren't marked "Ages 14 and Up" I might never have noticed the category. The surprise was my involvement with these two sharply-drawn teenager sisters. (Although, who wouldn't love a character whose eyes are described as "so blue you half expect to see tropical fish swimming there"?) For this non-teenaged reader, their angst grew so intense at one point that I was grumbling, "Oh, get over yourselves!" -- but I think the book would have struck me as just a tad fraudulent if I had never been allowed to feel that way. I wound up loving these girls in spite of themselves.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

Rosie and Skate are sisters. Rosie is a worrier, mostly concerned with holding things together at home and making a good impression. Skate is a free spirit, mostly interested in riding her skateboard down the boardwalk and spending as much time as possible with her boyfriend, Perry. The one thing Rosie and Skate have in common is their alcoholic father. Rosie finds comfort in attending a support group for teens with alcoholic parents. She thinks it would help Skate come to terms with their father's problem, but Skate thinks the meetings are too full of drama. When their father ends up in jail, Rosie visits him regularly, but again Skate doesn't join her. Both girls are in high school but live very different lives. Rosie lives at home with an aunt who has come to stay while Dad is incarcerated. Skate lives with Julia, her boyfriend Perry's mom, or with Frank, her boss at the arcade. Perry is away at college, and their long-distance romance is becoming shaky at best. ROSIE AND SKATE is the story of two sisters finding their way in a not-so-perfect situation. Both care deeply for each other; however, each is dealing with adversity in her own individual style. Despite the sometimes rocky times, the story is filled with concerned and caring people ready to help one another and give each other needed support. Beth Ann Bauman is the author of a collection of short stories for adults, so this is her first foray into the YA arena. Her writing flows smoothly and evenly and was a pleasure to read. The characters jumped off the page for me and seemed realistic and believable. I look forward to reading more of her work in the future. Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Great Read

I loved Rosie & Skate! There is much caring between these two sisters and friends. It was interesting to see the sisters mature in their life changing situations and interact with their father and each other. Will await your upcoming work! Best to you from a NJ Mom.