The Juliet Spell - Review

The Juliet Spell by Douglas Rees

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Teen for the eArc.

The Juliet Spell was cute and all, but not very deep. The characters didn't really get a chance to develop personalities at all. There was very little emotion in the story - the characters did and said things, but we never got a chance to know what they were thinking and feeling. For me, this made it hard to connect with either the characters or the storyline (which turns out really wasn't all that interesting!) Who doesn't love a handsome guy with an accent? But there needs to be something (anything) more to attract readers to the male lead.

Miranda is just an ordinary teen girl who uses her handy dandy magic kit to wish herself to be cast as Juliet in a local play. Something goes wrong, and instead she conjures up Edmund Shakeshaft, William Shakespeare's younger brother. Edmund takes his new reality hard at first (he cries for 12 hours. Who does that?) but he quickly adapts to his new surroundings. Amazingly, when Miranda introduces Edmund to her mother, she takes the news quite easily. Miranda's friends accept Edmund's presence like it's no biggie. They are all eager to 'help' Edmund adjust to the 21st century.

Edmund becomes Romeo to Miranda's Juliet, and zany times ensue during the play rehearsals. Lots of using the word 'ye' follow.

The Juliet Spell has a very cute premise, but the author just didn't pull it off. He should have stuck to the original 'magic' as explanation instead of trying to go high tech and math geeky to rationalize why Edmund appeared. And the sudden ending came.... suddenly. Not what I was expecting at all. It was very much of a let down.

For me The Juliet Spell was just okay. Enjoyable, but not overly so. Light and slightly entertaining, it could have been so much more. Maybe it will inspire teen readers to read Romeo and Juliet.

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