Romeo Redeemed by Stacey Jay

Book:  Romeo Redeemed

Author:  Stacey Jay

Publisher:  Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Date:  October 9, 2012

Source:  Publisher via Netgalley

My grade:  A-

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. Unbeknownst to her, Ariel is important to both the evil Mercenaries and the love-promoting Ambassadors and holds the fate of the world in her hands. Romeo must win her heart and make her believe in love, turning her away from her darker potential before his work is discovered by the Mercenaries. While his seduction begins as yet another lie, it soon becomes his only truth. Romeo vows to protect Ariel from harm, and do whatever it takes to win her heart and soul. But when Ariel is led to believe his love is a deception, she becomes vulnerable to Mercenary manipulation, and her own inner darkness may ultimately rip them apart.  (cover and description from www.goodreads.com)

Initial reaction

After all that I’ve read with these books, how is it that I can still find Romeo so swoonworthy?

Cover Story

This cover makes me want to hide my head in shame.  I’m so glad I was reading this on my Nook because there is no way I could have taken this cover out in public.  Bodice ripper romance, anyone?  The title is fitting since, well, Romeo redeems himself in this novel.

What’s the Story?

I ran to this book as soon as I finished Juliet Immortal because I couldn’t wait to see what happened to Romeo.  In the first book, he is such a bad boy!!  But, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him and hope that he would get his Happily Ever After eventually, so I dove right into Romeo Redeemed.

While I did find this book to be a good read and very satisfying, it just wasn’t quite as compelling to me as the first book.  I think it is because I sort of know the story and what is going on with the fighting between light and darkness.  Since I didn’t need to figure  out that mystery, there was just the story of Romeo and Ariel.

Now, I DID enjoy this book, a lot.  I didn’t read it quite as fast, but I found the love story to be a little more believable, for some reason.  I think it’s because I could believe Romeo’s remorse and suffering for hundreds of years would change him as a person and that someone like Ariel could have a profound effect on him.  Don’t know, but I do know that I felt this romance a little more.

One of the things that made me like this book is that I loved the fact that shallow Romeo was finally able to see past the surface level of someone and learn to love them.  It was almost like a Beauty and the Beast type story, except that Ariel doesn’t lose her scars and become beautiful on the outside, but rather, Romeo is transformed from someone who only looks at the outside to someone who can find the beauty within.  This transformation was breathtaking.

I really liked the characters a lot in this book.  Romeo has a very rakish charm that works well and Ariel is so strong as a character.  Even though I liked Juliet, I never understood what made Ben so great, but with Romeo and Ariel, I can find the strengths and the weaknesses that each character has and see why they work well together.

Honestly, there were many parts of this book that I feel were superior to the first book, but for some reason, I just didn’t find myself ripping through the pages like I did the first book.  Of course, the story was still good and the ending was very satisfactory and I closed the book feeling happy about where both Romeo and Juliet were at the end of the story.  I really did feel that Romeo was redeemed from all his sins in this book and it made me love him just a little bit more.

Soundtrack

Beautiful by India Arie

Beautiful by Joydrop

Wonder by Natalie Merchant

The Beauty in Ugly by Jason Mraz

Dare You to Move by Switchfoot

Better Man by Robbie Williams

The Final Grade

My final grade for this book is a A-.  I actually liked the characters better in this book, but the story dragged a bit for me.  I still liked it a lot though and I feel really satisfied with where everything ended and that is a great feeling when you close a book.