Romeo’s EX •Rosaline’s Story• by Lisa Fiedler (Review)

Date Finished: November 24, 2017

Page Count: 246

Genre: Fiction

            Ahh, what a relief to be able to read a book that I actually enjoy after the terrible screw up of the unspeakable book I last read. Romeo’s EX •Rosaline’s Story• by Lisa Fiedler is probably the shortest book I checked out to read over Thanksgiving, and it proved to be a nice quick read about the retelling of Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. So, remember that lovely lady Romeo was first trying to court because of her so called beauty before Juliet? Yeah, this story has her as the protagonist. And remember Romeo’s friend that was pretty much peace, love and willing to fight to keep the peace? That’s the dude Rosaline falls in love with in this book. Before I take this any further however, you should have read the original Romeo and Juliet first as it will greatly increase how much you enjoy this tale. There are many differences from the original, stuff from a different perspective and quotes straight form the play that need some background knowledge to pick up on. If you haven’t read the original play go search it online and read it before continuing on with this review (it’ll cause a ton of things to make sense).

So the prologue of the book stars a month before the first scene in the play where Rosaline helps Romeo’s friend after he got beaten up since Rosaline is learning to be a healer. My first reaction is that Lisa Fiedler was trying to do something feminist in a (rewritten) Shakespeare play or something like that, but as the story progressed I saw that this didn’t get in the way of the story and allowed everything to play out well. Because of her line of work and having determined  the negative consequences of falling in love outweigh the positive, Rosaline commits herself to a life of chastity despite being very beautiful and capturing the attention of several men (three of which are seen in the book). This establishes her dislike for Romeo, so when her beloved younger cousin, Juliet, (I’m not quite sure if they’re cousins in the original but whatever) fall in love with him she feels obligated to watch out for Juliet and make sure nothing bad happens. As the story progressed, Rosaline started trying to get the attention of Mercutio due to her perceiving him to have saved her from the brawl in the begging of the book (from the thumb biting and people trying to take out both houses at once), but thank the Lord, he turns her down due to perceiving her as a temptress and she goes to Benvolio’s side (the guy who actually saved her). Of course, she’s reluctant to pursue anything more than a friendship with him which is rather refreshing compared to what seems like every young adult novel where the protagonist falls in love. It’s even better when after Romeo “dies” and Juliet dies and Rosaline brings Romeo back to life and Benvolio then choses to propose to her and she turns him down. That was super awesome even though I was kinda rooting for them to get together. It made me happy that in the end, Rosaline returns form Padua (for school) after a few years and she embraces Benvolio, so I assume their on the path of rekindling their love. To sum things up, I really enjoyed Rosaline’s character form all her important milestones. When you take a look at her interactions with other character she gets even cooler.

So first things first, Romeo is still a butt who falls in love with his eyes and gets a lot of people killed _{let’s not forget that everything is Paris’s fault however}. There isn’t much on him, but it’s nice to see that he gets denied by Rosaline and he gets to live in the end. Personally I was at first upset he survived and Juliet didn’t, but with her gone it makes Rosaline motivated to learn more and Tybalt gets some company as a dead man. Speaking of the dead, Juliet had her youth and inexperience captured near perfection by Fiedler and I felt she really stole the show whoever she was around. Again, super disappointed she died but it was for the greater good. Then there’s Tybalt, the cousin of Juliet and Rosaline and I like how his caring side was seen in addition to his hotheadedness and violent nature. He might be the best character as when he “died” after his fight with Mercutio, Rosaline was able to keep his body alive in a limbo like state even though he would till die soon eventually. He got to fly around Verona and be a ghost, watching all that was happening and gives his own commentary about the situation. No one could see him or hear him, but with him there we got to see things happen to Juliet without being told form her perspective which was tons of fun. Mercutio was still a womanizer and an airhead, the parents were still unaware of the romance between their kids, and the Prince still intervened too late. Some original characters named Viola and Sebastian made an appearance as well, and they were kids that Benvolio looked after and they had very pleasant personalities. I liked them even more when Rosaline used them to give the Montagues and Capulets another chance at raising some kids right. And last, but not least, Benvolio was madly in love with Rosaline, but he didn’t let it blind him like Romeo did. The guy was sensible and respectful and a great contrast to Romeo’s character which was much needed. Seeing that Rosaline had someone to support her and help her through the story was great and I’m happy they supposedly ended up together.

Enough about the characters, the format of the book is noteworthy too (even if my praise of it be brief). So the chapters are titled the name of whoever’s first person point of view is being shared which is convenient, and allows the story to be told form multiple perspectives. I think Rosaline’s perspective was the most frequent which makes sense with her being the main character, but there were other interesting people like Benvolio and Romeo and Tybalt and Mercutio to name a few. Tybalt was the most fun to hear form when he was a ghost as I mentioned before but everyone’s different point of view was something to look forward to, especially since Fiedler chose the right people to narrate for the right scenes. The chapters themselves were relatively short for the most part which allowed for the story to quickly progress and multiple views be shared, thus preventing Rosaline form being a glory hog. They weren’t the annoying short like in Forge but a short and sweet short which was a relief since I plan on reading the final book in Anderson’s series and I have a feeling there might be more choppy chapters coming up.

Then we have the overarching questions that each of these reviews eventually comes to. I am pleased to say this time though that I recommend this book to other people who have read Romeo and Juliet already (the original one) and want to witness the story with a happier ending or be told form different perspectives. There’s Shakespearean language in this book, but its far form as confusing as one would find in the original play and can easily be followed along by most that have come through middle school. Fiedler’s work is comparable to Marissa Meyer’s and Danielle Paige as her retelling of stories is memorable, entertaining and not a jerk to the source. For some this may not be a must read right now, or even at the top of your book list but at some point I do think you should give it a read as I love this book and think those who fit the criteria would as well.