bonnybonnybooks 's review for:

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

4.0

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I can't believe it took me this long to read Romeo & Juliet. That's because we read A Midsummer Night's Dream in 9th grade instead, which I think was probably for the best. So, R&J is one of the more readable of Shakespeare's plays and it has a lot of great lines. But it is basically one idiotic act after another. Especially basically anything that Romeo ever does, ever. He is a whiny emo kid, but not in an awesome way like Hamlet (who might have been the original emo prince, but was kind of badass in the way he went about it). Instead, he is a whiny emo kid in the I-Keep-Threatening-To-Kill-Myself-Whenever-The-Smallest-Thing-Goes-Wrong way. Way to be melodramatic, Romeo.

But, to prove that Shakespeare is indeed THE Bard, he did give us these immortal words, the best exchange in R&J:

ABRAHAM: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON: I do bite my thumb, sir.

ABRAHAM: Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON [Aside to Gregory.:]: Is the law of our side, if I say ay?

GREGORY [Aside to Sampson.:]: No.

SAMPSON: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.

GREGORY: Do you quarrel, sir?

ABRAHAM: Quarrel sir! no, sir.

And you thought I was going to say the famous balcony scene, right? NO! This is way better.