Bubbling up with Helena

• Title: Everything’s Coming Up Rosie
• Author: Courtney Walsh
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release Date: 6/10/25
• Genre: Romance
• Age Range: Adult
• Rating: ★★★
• Publisher’s Summary: Sometimes what you think you want and what you actually want turn out to be different things . . .Rosie Waterman has one to become a working actor. But lately, that hasn’t been working out. When she loses her apartment and her job on the same day, she does what she always does–puts herself out there, ready to find the next big thing. But a trip home makes her realize that while she’s been struggling to make this dream come true, all her friends have become real adults with careers and weddings and babies on the way. Rosie’s been at this for years, and she has nothing to show for it. But how does she simply let go of her dream? When she’s offered a job as the director of a regional theatre’s production of Cinderella, she jumps at the chance–even though she’s only directed in college and the job is in Door County, Wisconsin, and not in New York. She has no other offers, and at least she’ll be getting paid to do something theatrical. But when she arrives, she quickly realizes that the “regional theatre” is actually in a retirement community, and the “actors” are actually senior citizens with no acting experience whatsoever. Working on the show presents new challenges, forcing Rosie to learn how to step up and be the leader this fledgling theatre troupe needs. The more time she spends with her new cast, the more she begins to rethink what it means to dream big, especially when that big dream hasn’t turned out to be at all what she thought it would be. It’s not at all what she expected, but could it be exactly what she needs?

I love theater, and I love Gypsy, so I immediately was drawn into the title of Everything’s Coming Up Rosie. I firmly believe, as a theater nerd, that more books should be set in theaters. There is so much capacity for drama and romance there. I enjoyed reading Everything’s Coming Up Rosie, but it’s not one that I’d return to.

I found it difficult to like Rosie. The readers gets insight into her backstory, and it is certainly tragic, but it feels like the book uses that as an excuse for all of Rosie’s mistakes. She doesn’t even read the job description before applying to work on a musical in a retirement community. While I can feel empathy for Rosie and her tragic childhood, I found the other characters in the book much more interesting.

Working in professional theater is hard, and I appreciated that Walsh highlights some of that reality. However, I was disappointed that Rosie felt the need to lie to her friends about that. She doesn’t trust them to be there for her, which is not only sad, but it cheapens their friendships. The snippets of their group chat in the book are a highlight, so it was a shame that Rosie (unsuccessfully) spends the book lying to her friends.

I like Booker, the retirement community’s physical therapist, but I had a hard time getting into his relationship with Rosie. Everyone makes a big deal about how cool and dreamy Booker is, which made me assume that it would take some time for something to develop with Rosie, but he immediately falls for her. She shuts him out, so he institutes a game where they have to answer questions and tell each other truths on Fridays to get her to open up. It feels like Booker is doing all of the work in their relationship

The ending of the book is the most frustrating aspect for me. With a character like Rosie, a reader wants to see a character arc. Rosie gets offered a job at the retirement home that would allow her to continue her relationship with Booker and the others in the community. While she does make a choice to approach her acting career differently at the end, I was disappointed to see her choose to go back to pursuing acting.

I honestly would love to see the production of Cinderella that Rosie directs, and I like to think the community has a thriving theater program going forward. Now that is a book I’d love to read.