Everyone knows the story of Juliet Capulet and her love for Romeo. The star-crossed lovers from the warring Capulet and Montague families of Verona whose love was doomed. I am JulietI love Shakespeare, so I may be biased, but this was a beautiful rendition of the tragedy. Unfortunately, I am biased against Romeo and Juliet because it’s a tragedy and I don’t tend to enjoy the tragic part of a tragedy. So I guess we’ll get to find out whether these influences balance each other out or not.
When re-telling a classic, especially a play or movie, it’s always important to fill in the gaps in-between the dialogue and action with the emotions and thoughts of the character. I think Ms. French has done an excellent job of this. She has filled in the thoughts, emotions and in-between actions of Juliet to fit with the story and therefore preventing a dis-jointed, plot-hole riddled experience. Another good this about this book is that it has an interesting perspective. For a story that is usually told in third person (or from Romeo’s POV), limiting it to the first person character of Juliet creates an interesting POV. We don’t often get this perspective which creates an allure to read the book. The other problem with re-telling a classic, is that everybody already knows the entire plot, and in some cases, the elaborate details of it. It makes the plot stale and predictable. That’s why many authors find it easier to just re-do a classic only using it’s premise rather than go to all the risk of a re-telling being boring. For example, Sarah J Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses, or Hunter’s Moon by Sophie Masson are re-do’s of the FairyTales of Snow White and Beauty and the Beast. (BTW, I recommend Hunter’s Moon, but I suggest you read a few reviews with multiple perspectives before you dive into ACOTAR) Here’s where my bias comes in. I am a total fan of Shakespeare and romance, but I only like Romeo and Juliet up until Romeo gets banished. I get cold feet because I know what’s going to happen and I really don’t like to watch train wrecks. You may be like me, or you may like tragedies, but if you’re like me, knowing the plot becomes fatal for the book. I still really enjoyed it, and it was a good piece of writing, but I felt like covering my eyes when it started to lead up to you-know-what (for those who don't know what 'what' is, you must read this book because you're missing a vital piece of literature culture!!!!). But then I was wonderfully surprised-but I’ll get to that later. In a short story, it's true that you don’t get much time to world-build or create character development but I like how Juliet seems to develop throughout the story. How she becomes braver (or becomes slightly stupid-but as Shakespeare himself said, “Love makes fools of us all…”), and stands up for what she believes in. Her determination is pretty admirable as well. She didn't get as much time to develop as I would've liked, but I'm used to long novels rather than short stories, so I guess she must've done as well as she could. One thing I didn’t like was that Juliet was only 13, but that’s how it was in the original play so I don’t complain about that, but she doesn’t act 13, she acts and thinks much older which kind of annoys me. I think it is appropriate that Ms. French re-told this story since she has a lot of authorial experience in writing historical fiction, so she has researched all the little things that create an old Veronian (Verona is where the story is set) atmosphere. She adds the manners, the dress, the politics and the world of the story that really makes it real. One part I especially liked was chapter one and twenty-three with Rob in 1592. It really ads contrast and intrigue to the story. I would’ve really liked to see more of him throughout the tale. But we only got the first and last chapters, which was right for the plot, but sad. The author’s notes at the end are also very interesting and enlightening to the time period and other really intriguing memorabilia. Definitely useful for those who would read SparkNotes to escape reading the actual text. The other part I liked was the ending, but I don’t want to spoil, even though you probably already know. I am aware that this sounds like a contradiction to my earlier ‘I hate tragedies’ statement, but I wrote most of this review before I finished-yeah, I know, it’s not a mistake I plan to make again. That brings me to another reason to like the book; it's a short, easily understandable version of Romeo and Juliet. Instead of going to SparkNotes or some other website as one often does in situations of school work where reading the book seems impossible, reading this would give a simple understanding of the Shakespearian classic without turning your brain to mush. Some people enjoy the poetic language of the original, and others like their brain nicely unscrambled thank you very much. (I like the originals, but I know some of you don’t). This is a short, easy, way to learn the basics of Romeo and Juliet without having to sort through thousands of pages of internetised (on the internet), digitised, information. When I started, the writing style, the setting and the characters were beautiful and bright, and the words seemed to float into my head like music, but as I went on, I think I closed myself off from it because I hate watching train wrecks and the instant love was a bit annoying. Sometimes I get really caught up in a story, even if there’s instant love, but this time I couldn’t. But then, as I persisted to the end, I was surprised. And then the magic of the first few chapters was back and instead of the mind-numbing train wreck I was expecting and braced for, I got a beautiful, definitely sad, but beautiful, magical, tragical (and yes, that is a word, go look it up!) ending. It possibly only got stale in the middle because today was the first day of term and coming back from the holidays is always hard. All in all, I’d probably give this book a 3/5. I really enjoyed it, but because I already knew the plot, it was a little bit annoying, but all in all, really good! There is kissing, drugs, distanced death (Juliet doesn’t see it and doesn’t experience it very strongly so by extension, we don’t), and lightly mentioned sex (you’d only recognise it if you knew what they were talking about-Juliet doesn’t know), but nothing much you wouldn’t see in the play, or read in it if you chose to read the original. There’s no swearing. (Unless you count Shakespeare insults-e.g. 'wench' etc!) I think the age recommendation would be the same age as you would let a child read the original play. So I’d guess about 12 or 13+ I know a lot of people enjoy Jackie French a lot more than I do, so I would recommend it to you, anyone who needs a quick Shakespeare re-cap and anyone else who is interested in a good, short read. I hope you enjoy this book too, StoryGirl
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About MeI'm just a girl who loves to read (and also to listen to music, watch tv, and really anything that involves a story). Archives
December 2020
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