Scan barcode
A review by elenagroves
Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons
3.25
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
As a fan of Romeo and Juliet since its required reading during my freshman year of high school (during which we also watched the 1968 film adaptation, my English teacher obscuring Romeo's bare butt cheeks by placing a blackened computer window over them; but I digress), I mostly enjoyed this very 2023-feminist retelling. Romeo is portrayed quite obviously as the 30-something-year-old predator that he is, leaving indelible marks on teenage girls in the Verona that we know and love. We dive into the psyche of enigmatic character Rosaline, who is mentioned but not observed and is the recipient, almost exclusively, of men's sexual objectification and depravity in the Shakespeare original. While this retelling admittedly does hand its moralism to the reader on a silver platter, I think that—in this case—it both works and would be difficult not to do. In my opinion, Fair Rosaline falls short of a higher rating due to challenges arising from wonky plot pacing, slightly underdeveloped characters, and a writing style that is technically fine, and clearly simplifies the play's prose to appeal to a modern audience, but one that I did not personally connect with. Nonetheless, the ideas and reworkings of the story are entertaining, and I am glad to have once again delved into this literary universe after many years.
As a fan of Romeo and Juliet since its required reading during my freshman year of high school (during which we also watched the 1968 film adaptation, my English teacher obscuring Romeo's bare butt cheeks by placing a blackened computer window over them; but I digress), I mostly enjoyed this very 2023-feminist retelling. Romeo is portrayed quite obviously as the 30-something-year-old predator that he is, leaving indelible marks on teenage girls in the Verona that we know and love. We dive into the psyche of enigmatic character Rosaline, who is mentioned but not observed and is the recipient, almost exclusively, of men's sexual objectification and depravity in the Shakespeare original. While this retelling admittedly does hand its moralism to the reader on a silver platter, I think that—in this case—it both works and would be difficult not to do. In my opinion, Fair Rosaline falls short of a higher rating due to challenges arising from wonky plot pacing, slightly underdeveloped characters, and a writing style that is technically fine, and clearly simplifies the play's prose to appeal to a modern audience, but one that I did not personally connect with. Nonetheless, the ideas and reworkings of the story are entertaining, and I am glad to have once again delved into this literary universe after many years.