Book Review: Romeo Redeemed by Stacey Jay

Romeo Redeemed

by Stacey Jay
Series: Juliet Immortal #2
Published: October 9, 2012
Genres: Retelling, Romance, Young Adult
Format: ARC (384 pages)
Source: For Review

Seductive companion to the popular Juliet Immortal, in which former lovers—Romeo and Juliet—meet, not as true lovers, but truly as enemies. Cursed to live out eternity in his rotted corpse, Romeo, known for his ruthless, cutthroat ways, is given the chance to redeem himself by traveling back in time to save the life of Ariel Dragland.

Spoiler free even if you haven’t read the first book in this series. 

I loved the character Romeo from Juliet Immortal.  Even though Romeo is evil in the first book, I felt like there was a Darth Vader thing going on.  Maybe he went bad for the “right” reasons and there is still some good in him.  I loved reading Romeo’s point of view in Romeo Redeemed. If it’s been a while since you read the first book, the author does a good job of refreshing your memory of the events but from Romeo’s view this time.

The story is so romantic, so steamy – I think I swooned when Romeo says “The lady laughs.” Romeo is the kind of broken bad boy that every girl wants to fix. The plot seemed pretty simple at first (and I had a feeling that this love thing was going to be harder than Romeo thinks) but the story went to places I wasn’t expecting. It had a different tone and it wasn’t quite as sad as the first one. It’s more about self-loathing and acceptance than sadness and betrayal.  Lightness and darkness having more in common than you think was an interesting theme. I had a lot of burning questions through the whole thing and luckily they were all answered. My one complaint was  this jarring, confusing scene about Juliet in the middle of Romeo’s story.  It does eventually get explained at the end, but I wish I didn’t have to wait so long to figure out what was going on. Overall, I loved it.

Content Rating: Medium, for mentions of teen drinking, innuendo and a suggestive scene. One use of strong language.

I received this book for review from the publisher, Delacorte Books for Young Readers, in exchange for an honest review. I was not told what to say, I was not paid to write this review and all the opinions expressed are my own.  I read an Advanced Reading Copy for this review.