The Rosie World

In a cramped urban household alive with noise and argument, Rosie O'Brien watches her brother get praised for a black eye while she's told girls don't behave that way. This is the ache at the center of Parker Fillmore's warm, wry novel: a girl who wants the freedom and respect automatically granted to boys, caught between the expectations of early 20th-century girlhood and her own restless ambition. Rosie navigates the chaos of her large family with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, trading banter with her siblings, clashing with her sister Ellen, and quietly admiring the boarder George Riley whose fights she finds far more interesting than the needlework she's supposed to be learning. The story follows Rosie as she pushes against the boundaries set for her, discovering that carving out her own path means confronting not just the world outside, but the doubts within. Filled with the textures of everyday urban life and the tender battles of sibling rivalry, this is a portrait of a girl deciding who she wants to become.