Blurb:

Italy . . . Shakespeare . . . but no romance?

Kate Sanderson inherited her good sense from her mother, a disciplined law professor, and her admiration for the Bard from her father, a passionate Shakespeare scholar. When she gets dumped, out of the blue, for the Practically Perfect Ashley Lawson, she vows never to fall in love again. From now on she will control her own destiny, and every decision she makes will be highly reasoned and rational. She thinks Shakespeare would have approved.

So when she is accepted to a summer Shakespeare symposium in Verona, Italy, Kate sees it as the ideal way to get over her heartbreak once and for all. She'll lose herself in her studies, explore ancient architecture, and eat plenty of pasta and gelato. (Plus, she'll be getting college credit for it--another goal accomplished ) But can even completely logical Kate resist the romance of living in a beautiful villa in the city where those star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet met and died for each other? Especially when the other Shakespeare Scholars--in particular Giacomo, with his tousled brown hair, expressive dark eyes, and charming ways--try hard to break her protective shell?

"In fair Verona, where we lay our scene . . . "

This one was just okay for me, but I'm glad it's over because it has been sitting on my shelf FOREVER. Full review to come, but it will be a short one. I just don't have a lot to say.

Review:

There is nothing wrong with "fluff" books. I like to read them sometimes, depending on my mood. That's what The Juliet Club was. But it also wasn't even a very good "fluff" book. It was overly corny, the dialogue was ridiculous, and the characters were cliched. And that was just the beginning. The plot was too far fetched, there was hardly any conflict--which consequently made the book boring--and the characters' motivations just didn't make much sense. I could just state that the writing was pretty terrible and the characters were flat and be done with it, but I need to go more into depth than that.I finished it because it was mindless and I was in the car on the way home from Florida, so why not finish it? But to be honest...it was a pretty lousy book. I do wish I had taken a different book along, but alas, I did not.

Let me put it this way. I was able to finish it, so there must have been something I liked, but I can't figure out what it was. It was a remarkably easy read. It only took me a few hours to finish, so it was fast. Here's a quote from the corny dialogue collection.

Instead, feeling saintly, he said, "Perhaps you will meet a new girl this seminar. Perhaps she will be beautiful. Perhaps she will fall in love with you--"

See what I mean? Nobody talks this way. And it went on for. The. Entire. Book. It was almost like the author was trying to make her characters speak like Shakespeare's characters but failing miserably. I hated it. And I wanted to punch them in the face. Not only did they talk stupidly, but they acted stupidly. Hard to explain. I found Kate's (the protagonist's)actions the hardest to understand. Just because she dated a loser who supposedly broke her heart before she went to Italy, she decided to never be in another relationship again and to make her decisions only based on logic and never on her feelings. Which would be okay if it worked, but every human in the world knows that would never happen, including the one that currently is making said decision. Stupid. This entire book was just stupid.

Stereotypical characters? Yup, there were those as well. From the cliched Southern girl without brains but lots of charm, to the people from the host country being rude towards foreigners who can only speak English. I know most of my grievances with this book are minor, but when you add them all together, it was just a time-waster and I wish I could get back the 3-4 hours I spent reading it. Read at your own risk. And I will laugh at you. You have been properly warned.