Jenna Likes to Read

Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors

Posted on 10 September 2009

Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors

Manhattan meets Verona in this time-bending twist on Shakespeare. When Mimi is magically thrust into the middle of Shakespeare’s Verona, she must find a way to help Juliet fight for her future happiness. Will she be able to give this classic tragedy a happy ending?

Romeo and Juliet isn’t one of my favorite stories, to be honest.  I like to stop and think things through, so I have trouble relating to two silly teenagers that act so rashly.  I do like many parts of the play and I love the Baz Luhrmann movie.  The soundtrack is amazing and as a 15 year old when it came out, I was required by law to have a crush on Leo.  It made reading the play in 9th grade a little easier.

So you would think I would like a book in which the main character is determined to keep those crazy kids alive.  Unfortunately, I didn’t.  I did like the premise.  I felt the book had been written for someone who had never read R+J before.  EVERYTHING was explained.  The characters and their personalities in the play were explained in detail, but then often the character in the book didn’t exactly act that way.  I realize that Juliet was supposed to be middle school age, but she seemed younger in my opinion.  I felt like she was more 9 or 10.

The biggest problem I had, however, were the giant anvils.  We’re constantly reminded by Mimi that her story is just like Juliet’s.  It was like “Hey, here’s another parallel!  Despite the fact that you picked up on it 3 pages before I did, let me explain to you in detail how I am just like Juliet!”  It got old.

Overall, I did think there were funny and well written parts to the book, but the things I mentioned above kept me from enjoying it as much as I wanted to.