Reviews

Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons

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andshe_reads's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Well what a fantastic retelling of Romeo and Juliet, spoken from Rosalines POV.

Most people know of the classic version of this story however Natasha Solomons puts a whole new perspective on the tragedy in her version.

We get more insight into Romeos Wicked ways especially towards women. Within the story its also made clear how much women and young girls are taken advantage of and how they were once treated, even by the men in their own families. It was so sad to read about Rosalines life and what lay ahead for her. I grew very fond of her character and honestly I felt all the emotions right with her from her anger to her devastation.

The ending made it a 5 star read for me. This is my first book by this author and I'll be looking forward to reading more in the future.

Thank you to Bonnier Books for kindly sending me a copy of this book to read and review.

literarysloth's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

tigerlilly558's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

3.0

jennelsey's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

I feel this book was based on a flawed interpretation of the original text. The author said she read Romeo and Juliet differently as parent and saw it as a story of adults failing to protect the children in their care. I feel like a very interesting story could have been written in that vein, without resorting to pantomime villains as she did. I was disappointed by this book, I feel like it had a lot more potential and I feel that it gave a very bad faith interpretation of Shakespeare’s original characters. This was like a Q-anon retelling. There was some interesting use of Shakespeare’s original language and good use of elements of his other works. A lot of potential, this could have been so good.

rosiethesheep's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was quite slow to start with and took a while for me to get into it. I loved the weaving of the Shakespeare play and the nods to others through out. The ending was superb! Hope the author does more retellings.