Scan barcode
A review by rajnandaniwrapthefury
Romeo for Real by Markus Harwood-Jones
3.0
This is a short story, and by short I mean 90 pages short story. It is a story about a football player who is on the peak of his career yet he finds himself restless and kinda lost. He even has friends who are fun to hang out with but inside he is just alone. They break rules, teases others and crack jokes, but Romeo feels guilty more than fun. Something does not feels right to Romeo or Rome as his friends call him.
He wants to understand more about himself. He is just not truly happy from inside and wants to be happy. Then one day, he stumbles upon a boy in a party who seemed to accelerate his heart just by being himself. The openly gay boy and Romeo ends up kissing each other but this scares Romeo. He ran away from the party even without asking for name.
Now Romeo is confused more than he was earlier about himself and more than that he wanted to kiss Julian more. He is not ready to accept himself and finds himself stuck within himself. Finally, he gathers his courage and decides to accept himself, but will others accept him or he will be just content to be himself?
At first, Romeo seemed to hide this truth below layers of lies but eventually he comes to accept himself. The threats, japes and even violence seemed easier to bear and fight against once he completely accepted himself.
The writing style is plain and simple. There was a hollowness in the story regarding emotions. The story is good and the struggle is real but still the lack of details fails to bound the readers to story. The development of characters do not seemed complete. The other characters were left without any description. The author only focussed on comimg out of Romeo. Even his background information is incomplete which drastically affects the story. The struggles of coming out and accepting yourself has been captured perfetly but would've been better if more background story about Romeo and Rosie, his parents and his school life would've been appreciated.
Note: I was given this e-arc copy by the publisher and Netgalley for my honest review and I want to thank them.
He wants to understand more about himself. He is just not truly happy from inside and wants to be happy. Then one day, he stumbles upon a boy in a party who seemed to accelerate his heart just by being himself. The openly gay boy and Romeo ends up kissing each other but this scares Romeo. He ran away from the party even without asking for name.
Now Romeo is confused more than he was earlier about himself and more than that he wanted to kiss Julian more. He is not ready to accept himself and finds himself stuck within himself. Finally, he gathers his courage and decides to accept himself, but will others accept him or he will be just content to be himself?
At first, Romeo seemed to hide this truth below layers of lies but eventually he comes to accept himself. The threats, japes and even violence seemed easier to bear and fight against once he completely accepted himself.
The writing style is plain and simple. There was a hollowness in the story regarding emotions. The story is good and the struggle is real but still the lack of details fails to bound the readers to story. The development of characters do not seemed complete. The other characters were left without any description. The author only focussed on comimg out of Romeo. Even his background information is incomplete which drastically affects the story. The struggles of coming out and accepting yourself has been captured perfetly but would've been better if more background story about Romeo and Rosie, his parents and his school life would've been appreciated.
Note: I was given this e-arc copy by the publisher and Netgalley for my honest review and I want to thank them.