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Title: Disappointing
Review: I picked up "Rose" after it was highly recommended by a friend. While the details of life in an 1870s English coal-mining town are exceptionally well done, I felt the overall story was flat. In fact, it seems more like Smith wanted to write a story about coal-mining and then had to contrive a plot rather than coming up with a plot and then filling in the details. The disappearance of the town's curate is only a cover for the deeper mystery of Rose herself - but that mystery isn't all that hard to figure out and makes other plot lines seem ridiculous in retrospect. While there's enough of a story here to hold one's interest through to the end, it might be better not to start it in the first place.
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