*Spoiler free*
Seventeen-year-old Megan Harper is about due for her next sweeping romance. It’s inevitable—each of her relationships starts with the perfect guy and ends with him falling in love . . . with someone else. But instead of feeling sorry for herself, Megan focuses on pursuing her next fling, directing theater, and fulfilling her dream college’s acting requirement in the smallest role possible. So when she’s cast as Juliet (yes, that Juliet) in her high school’s production, it’s a complete nightmare. Megan’s not an actress, and she’s used to being upstaged—both in and out of the theater. In fact, with her mom off in Texas and her dad remarried and on to baby #2 with his new wife, Megan worries that, just like her exes, her family is moving on without her. Then she meets Owen Okita, an aspiring playwright inspired by Rosaline from Shakespeare’s R+J. A character who, like Megan, knows a thing or two about short-lived relationships. Megan agrees to help Owen with his play in exchange for help catching the eye of a sexy stagehand/potential new boyfriend. Yet Megan finds herself growing closer to Owen, and wonders if he could be the Romeo she never expected.
After reading and loving If I’m Being Honest, I was incredibly eager to read another book by these authors! I didn’t think I would jump right into another one, but here we are haha. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try this one or Time Of Our Lives first, but this one was on my shelf. Plus, it’s theatre! Romeo & Juliet to be exact, so it’s Shakespeare theatre. And it’s about a girl who’s boyfriends find the love of their lives after, or even during, dating her. Really, it was another Wibboka book, so I was eager to read it.
Oh, this book is so good. Yes, I am going to be fully playing into the hype surrounding these authors even more than I was planning to after reading If I’m Being Honest. I don’t know if I liked this book as much as that one, but I still loved it enough that it makes my heart squeeze and melt thinking about it.
I love theatre and I have a grudging like of Shakespeare, and this book shoved the two of them together and made it something amazing. Megan’s passion for directing and her awkwardness, but wanting to do wellness in acting came through so strongly. It made everything about the theatre plot work so well. It was just really great to read.
This is going to sound weird, but these authors know how to write pain. (If they ever write a sad book, everybody better watch out) This book is definitely romantic and fluffy, but there’s times were things get hard. Megan has things she needs to figure out. She has to work out her ideals and she’s trying to find her people and her passions. Sometimes things get hard, and the hard feelings are written so incredibly well. They make me tear up and make me fall in love with the characters even more.
On the other hand, these authors are incredibly good at writing the fluffy, happy emotions too. The kind that make my heart swell and leave me grinning at the book. Both the hard emotions and the fluffy emotion offset each other so brilliantly. It leaves me with a bunch of emotions and basically just wanting to hug the book haha.
I loved Megan. I loved Owen. I loved Anthony. I loved the complicated relationships between all the characters, because they weren’t smooth sailing all the way through. All of them had their bumps, and I loved how it forced everyone to look at things differently. I pushed them to become better people and in the end, it brought them closer together.
Megan’s journey of trying to find out, and realize, where she fits was one that I loved. She wants to find out where and how she belongs. And that she belongs in the first place.
My only qualm with this book is that the story seemed a bit messy. I felt like different aspects, the emotional, the theatre plot, Megan trying to find out where she fits, didn’t fully connect. They seemed a bit all over the place. But I feel like that’s a personal thing and it didn’t really effect my love of this book!
All in all, this book is just so freaking cute. It has Shakespeare, theatre, sweet and adorable and cute and delightful romance, painful and fluffy emotions, and wonderful characters. It’s another one of these author’s books that I fell completely in love with. It’s so, so good.
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