Hi! I won a Goodreads Giveaway a few months back for this book. I wanted to give a formal review for it, even though it wasn’t required, and the book has already been out for a week. Information from Goodreads!

Title: Waking Romeo

Author: Kathryn Barker

Published: January 4th, 2022, by Flatiron books 

Rating: 3.25 stars (3 on Goodreads)

Add this book to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57693691-waking-romeo. 

What worked for me

Characters

I’ve been sitting with this book for a few days, and even dropped my rating down. My favorite thing about this book was the characters. Being familiar with Romeo and Juliet, I already knew about them, and their story. Barker does an excellent job of bringing these characters into a new light and giving them a new story. There are new characters in this story as well, and they were fantastic and had interesting backstories. This book lies in the characters, and their banter and interactions, and I’m fine with that because I enjoyed them. I’m not a fan of Wuthering Heights, but I still really enjoyed Ellis as a character. 

Writing 

The writing in this book is good. It works well for the story being told, and I really enjoyed it. I thought that the scenes that were light-hearted worked well because the tone of the book was lighter. The heavier, or more heartbreaking scenes, were a more serious tone, and I think that worked really well for the story being told. 

What could have been better 

Plot

So, here’s where things didn’t work so well for me with this book. I honestly think this could just be a me thing, and others would enjoy the story more than I did. Here’s the thing: as I said above, I’m not a fan of Wuthering Heights. The story of Wuthering Heights confused me, and I was confused by this story as well. There are time jumps in Waking Romeo, and while I understood where they were going, time jumps rarely work well for me because they take me out of the story. The story of Waking Romeo was good, but the time jumps took me out of the story, and I was lost and confused sometimes. I think the plot of this story would work better for people who are used to the Dystopian genre. This was the first Dystopian book I’ve read in about 10 years. There were some elements of the plot I enjoyed. I loved the overall story of waking Romeo and Juliet, living her own life for her. I enjoyed Ellis as a character and his love story with Jules. 

Romance 

The romance in the book could have been better. We all know that Romeo and Juliet are a couple, and I thought it would end this way as well. I don’t want to spoil the book, but I just thought the romance could have been better. I enjoyed elements of the love story, but in the end, I just wanted more.