Still Star- Crossed- Melinda Taub

Romeo and Juliet are gone. Will love live on? Despite the glooming peace that's settled on Verona after the recent tragedy, Montagues and Capulets are brawling in the streets. Faced with more bloody battles, Prince Escalus concludes that the only way to truly marry the fortunes of these two families is to literally marry them together. Everyone is skeptical, but none more so than the pair selected, for the most eligible Montague bachelor is Benvolio, Romeo's best friend, still anguished by the loss of his companions, and the chosen Capulet maid is Juliet's older cousin Rosaline, the girl Romeo first loved and whose refusal of Romeo's affection paved the way for bloodshed. Contrary to their late cousins, there's no love lost between Benvolio and Rosaline, yet they forge a bond to end the renewed feud not only to escape their forced betrothal, but to save their lives and the city of Verona itself

Anyone who reads my reviews or blog will know I love nothing more than a Shakespeare retelling.  I have read as many of them as I could fine that actually looked like I would enjoy them. So when I stumbled upon Still Star Crosses I was excited and a little concerned.  Concerned because Romeo and Juliet is my LEAST favorite play and excited because it had to do with Rosaline and I always felt her a much under rated character.

I enjoyed this book a lot, it had great premise, excellent action scenes, the characters were well flushed out and the descriptions were beautiful. The author did something I really loved, she tied this in with others of the Bard’s plays like Much Ado About Nothing. The villain also took me a bit by surprise and I liked that a lot.

These were my issues however:

1)      They speak in that Shakespeare kind of thee thou way….but the descriptions and inner monologues were not written the same way. I feel it would have been better all written modern.

2)      Love Triangle- Rosaline loves the Prince, the Prince loves Rosaline, Rosaline loves Benvolio and Benvolio loves Rosaline….Blech… Why does this sort of this happen so much in novels right now? I HATE IT!! Ok, she’s beautiful but really? C’mon. Yuck.

3)      The Prince- can we say major douche bag. *spoiler a head* he black mails her to do what he wants, like threatens her VIRTUE. *end spoiler*  And yet she STILL loves him and considers marrying him. EEEEWWW! He is a total ass and I HATED him. Like I was angry and heart broken for poor Rosaline about the Prince and just wanted him to die a horrible and sad death,

Aside from those items I very much enjoyed this novel. It was well written and kept my attention, in fact I couldn’t put it down.