A review by dalitza
Bad Romeo by Leisa Rayven

4.0

It's live! Amazon buy link -> http://amzn.to/1r9IutZ

A story about mad passionate attraction and love between a brooding, tortured hero and a naïve, hilarious virgin who is the only one that has any hope in helping him. It was complete sexual tension escapism.

A quick note, this will be a two part review. The first is a hopefully short diatribe and then the actual book review. For those of you who want to get to the nitty gritty I’m going to hide my pre-review in a spoiler block, but there are no spoilers.

SpoilerWhile checking out book lists I came across a pinkish cover with a shattered heart that coupled with the title turned my thoughts to the most famous Romeo of all time, and I was almost goner. See, I thought I’d spend December knitting and crocheting instead of reading. Who was I kidding!

I go to GR to check out reviews and I see it has a good average rating and that several of my GR friends want to read it. But the first two reviews from people I follow come up with a 2 and a 5 star rating. I’m more than curious after reading both, because even when they coincide about the angst and good writing style, they obviously differ in everything else.

Doing more research (probably too much judging from my review’s length) I find out this was originally a fanFiction story called The Diva Diaries (now the heroine’s diary entries make more sense). It also turns out, that the fanFic was originally based on the two characters that hooked me into reading: Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. The file has been pulled from the site for rewrites and publishing, but there were still a few out-takes which gave me some perspective from Ethan’s POV.

I just wanted to explain my mindset while reading Bad Romeo. Before this dubiously starts to look like a diary entry from the heroine’s book (I’ll remember not to comment on how weird it seemed that a 25 year old would keep a diary) I’ll get to the actual review.


While trying to get into a most prestigious school of arts, emotionally challenged but incredibly talented Ethan Holt meets equally gifted Cassandra Taylor. And although their onstage chemistry while playing the most famous star crossed lovers of all time is remarkable, their offstage connection runs even deeper, frightening Ethan into strengthening his emotional armor. But even when Cassie is compliant with the rest of the world, she’s fiery and determined with Ethan and she’ll stop at nothing to get past the walls he’s erected.
“I’m going to ruin you for all other women.”

But even after their three years in school and in a relationship, Ethan seems to still be fearful of failure, rejection and being a Bad Romeo. Deciding to walk away from Cassie right after graduation.
“I thought I was cutting the cancer that was me out of your life.”

Three years later he has realized that leaving her was the biggest mistake of his life. He’s matured, grown and sought help to better himself because failure to get the woman he loves is not an option. Can he convince a now bitter and jaded Cassandra?
“We’ve never been over. You know it as well as I do. Even when I was halfway around the world and you hated my guts, we weren’t over.”

Bad Romeo starts off in present time when Cassie and Ethan have once again been cast opposite one another in a romantic Broadway play. And while she’s angry at Ethan, there’s no denying their attraction and the fact that her feelings for him haven’t died but been buried deep. The story and even Cassie’s diary entries alternate between past and present while revealing their story.

I wasn’t sure I would like Cassie at first. I like strong, independent woman, so reading solely from the perspective a girl with no identity or backbone seemed unappealing. But besides me understanding where that lack of character came from, she could laugh at herself,
“If there were a Nation of Stupid People, I would be their queen.”

she was general funny especially when it came to her obsession with vaginas, penises and sex,
“You rubbed your girl flower on his love muscle.”

and was forward when it came to Ethan.

And Ethan, the ultimate tortured soul, completely opposed to love, but was sweet and even fragil underneath his moodiness. He had betrayal and abandonment issues and knew he was not an easy person to get along with. He tried so hard to resist and push away Cassie. For her sake as well as his.
“If Romeo thought he loved Rosaline and she broke his heart, why wouldn’t he be terrified of Juliet, considering his connection to her is a hundred times stronger?”

Even though I had read the outtakes from his perspective, we get to know him slowly and once I got a better picture I understood where he was coming from.

I really enjoyed their love-to-hate-you parrying, even when at times it felt like two children were arguing.
“It’s an I’m-a-dick-achino”
“Huh. Smells like plain old hot chocolate to me.”
“Yeah, well, it turns out they were out of dick-achinos. I offered to make some more, but they said I was overqualified.”

Not to mention their scorching intense connection.
“The way we react to each other is elemental. Candle wax and flame.”

I did feel that their present story never really moved forward and their past was only half told. But I never felt any angst, probably due to my research (see hidden diatribe) and because I found the author’s hints telling of what was to come. I also thought that since Romeo+Juliet is such a timeless classic, I would get some sort of rinse, wash and repeat of it. But I found more similarities with Twilight and given its origin, it would have been weird not to.

In the end the writing was addictive. I smiled, swooned (I wish I could share all the swoon worthy highlights) and had some pretty good laughs while reading Ethan and Cassie’s story. I would’ve liked to have read Broken Juliet immediately after to see if my unresolved questions get answers.

I recommend this book if you like coming of age and second chance romances. There is no cheating, no triangle and no happy ending but certainly the promise of one in the next book.
“Sometimes it’s not about trying to fix something that’s broken. Sometimes it’s about starting again and building something new. Something better.”


Buy link -> http://amzn.to/1HfyDXo

* I was given an ARC of this book for an honest review via Netgalley. The excerpts are from that copy. *



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