What do you think?
Rate this book
Romeo & Juliet & Vampires
"You are deluded, Romeo. Vampires do not have the capability to love. They are heartless."
The Capulets and the Montagues have some deep and essential differences. Blood differences. Of course, the Capulets can escape their vampire fate, and the Montagues can try not to kill their undead enemies. But at the end of the day, their blood feud is unstoppable. So it's really quite a problem when Juliet, a vampire-to-be, and Romeo, the human who should be hunting her, fall desperately in love. What they don't realize is how deadly their love will turn out to be—or what it will mean for their afterlives. . . .
This riotous twist on the ultimate tale of forbidden romance is simply to die for.
The Capulets and the Montagues have some deep and essential differences. Blood differences. Of course, the Capulets can escape their vampire fate, and the Montagues can try not to kill their undead enemies. But at the end of the day, their blood feud is unstoppable. So it's really quite a problem when Juliet, a vampire-to-be, and Romeo, the human who should be hunting her, fall desperately in love. What they don't realize is how deadly their love will turn out to be—or what it will mean for their afterlives. . . .
This riotous twist on the ultimate tale of forbidden romance is simply to die for.
204 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 31, 2010
25 people are currently reading
2369 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
December 24, 2013
All right, people. I almost NEVER do this. In fact, I can't think of a book I've read other than the one I'm about to review where I've done this. But I actually picked up a book, read about 30 pages, and then debated whether to set it on fire or feed it to my deadly piranhas. This is the only book that's ever provoked me that way. And I have read many a book that was badly done, but never one that disappointed me so much.
I am referring to Romeo and Juliet and Vampires, supposedly adapted from Shakespeare by Claudia Gabel.
Now, I'm sure we all remember that big craze from a few years back, starting with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, followed by books like Little Vampire Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, and Wuthering Bites. I haven't read all of those, but I have read P&P&Z as well as Little Vampire Women, and they were cute and well done and really funny.
This book was not cute. This book was not funny. This book was not well done. This book was stupid, and I do NOT use that word lightly in a professional review.
Here's why I couldn't get past the first thirty pages.
1) Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are horsing around in a very early scene and Mercutio calls Romeo a fat cow. I'm serious. He calls him a fat cow.
Now, these are boys. Girls call each other cows, and guys call girls cows, but I have NEVER heard of a boy calling another boy a fat cow. If a boy DID call another boy that, they'd be laughed at and humiliated for coming up with such a pathetic piece of not-so-witty repartee.
Not only that, but during this time period, these boys were considered to be on the cusp of becoming men. So you'd expect a little more maturity in their insults. I mean, it's not like Romeo and Mercutio don't rag the crud out of each other. They did. Hence why Romeo says things like, "They jest at scars but never felt the wound" (referring to their teasing about his being in love). But it would be on the level of a MAN, not a three-year-old at their first day of preschool.
Also, people did not speak back then as modern teens speak now. Romeo did not use words like "douche bag" and Mercutio did not use words like "dill-weed." That's just common sense. Not that the dialogue has to be all thee, thou, thy, and wherefore, but there's a way to blend the two. Historical fiction is popular among teens, so it's not like people can't get into a slightly more formal language style.
And you can modernize a historical story without destroying its authenticity. Look at A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger. Quite a bit of modernizing in that, but the language was old-style in a lot of it, and yet it was still popular! Not only that, but the modern dialogue didn’t even feel like natural dialogue ANYWAY. So what was the point of having it in the first place?
I'm sorry, but this author's insertion of (pathetic and improperly applied) modern slang feels like condescension to the reader to me, as if she thinks we're too uneducated to understand what the characters are saying unless she brings it down to basically a preschool level. I rarely get offended by a book, but the badly done language bugged the heck out of me.
2) The incredibly hokey portrayal of vampires. In R&J&V, Juliet and all the Capulets are vampires. I'm okay with that. I love vampires. But the vamps in this book are more ridonculous and campy than even the 1930's Dracula with Bela Lugosi and the rubber bat. The effect is muted in Juliet, because she's not a full vampire yet, but you see it in Lady Capulet.
First of all, Lady C has crimson eyes. By itself, I could take it. But she's also got a prominent widow's peak, dark hair, fangs that DON'T retract, and she's so pale that she's sallow. She's like, tallow-colored. She's jaundiced-looking.
Also, she dresses like Elvira or Morticia Addams in the clingy dress with the tendrils on the hems, including a little cape that serves no purpose except to look vampy and doesn't even fall all the way to her feet.
Add onto that the way she enters and leaves the room during the scene where in the play Juliet's mom is like, "Speak briefly: can you like of Paris's love?" In the book, she comes in with her cape draped along her forearm and her forearm in front of her face, FLOATING six or so inches off the ground. Why is she floating? I have NO idea. And she NEVER really stops. It's said that Juliet will start floating too after she becomes a full-fledged vampire.
So basically Claudia Gabel grabbed every schticky, icky, vampy stereotype from those campy movies made in the 1930s-70s and smushed them all together. Maybe she meant it to be funny, like a parody or something…but it wasn't. It wasn't satirical, it wasn't parody-funny, it wasn't funny in any way. It was ridiculous. It's like if one of those caricature sketch-artists off the street looked at Lady Capulet and she said, "Draw me as one of the fiendish undead!"
I love vampires. I love all the different variations found in literature. I've read "The Night Flyer" by Stephen King, PN Elrod's novels about her vampire detective, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Fred Saberhagen's Dracula books, Nina Kiraly's Mina, Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, even the totally adorable novel Bloodthirsty. And I've watched all kinds of movies, from The Hunger to The Lost Boys to Van Helsing to Dracula 2000. And they were all so much better than this. BBC's Young Dracula, The Little Vampire…even Twilight was better, and the sparkly bloodsucking dudes in Twilight aren't even real vampires. That's just sad.
3) Finally, how Juliet has to become a vampire: she has to bite and kill someone. So basically she's given a choice by the author to either give up everyone she loves - her parents, her other family - as well as the life she's known all this time in order to do what's right and not murder an innocent person (it never occurs to her to go after a rapist or a killer)…or she kills someone and becomes evil.
Now, if this book wasn't so hokey, this plotline would be perfect. It would be fine. It would totally work. But you can't take a serious plotline like this, one fraught with emotional introspection and seriously tough choices, and then be like, "And now let's add some crack-acid to liven things up even though it makes people wanna say, 'Go home, book. You're drunk.' Just 'cause we can."
You can't take a plotline this serious, this potentially dynamic, this potentially beautiful, and slather it with all the stupidity heaped up in the first chapter. And if that's the author's way of being like, "Ha, you must wade through the crud to get to the good stuff," well then shame on her, because that's not how it works, since SOMEONE had to shell out money for that book to be available (in this case the library, or whoever donated the book). So I hope that wasn’t why she did that. I doubt it was, actually, but I like to cover my bases. Whatever her reason - she just didn't know any better, she didn't care, whatever - I couldn't finish this book.
So, I'm sorry but this book is 0 stars from me. I literally would have to be paid in order to read it, and it would have to be upwards of $30 because I'm a really busy individual. The only thing I've ever read that was worse than this was a fanfic (the infamous "My Immortal" about Harry Potter). That's saying a lot.
- LA Knight
I am referring to Romeo and Juliet and Vampires, supposedly adapted from Shakespeare by Claudia Gabel.
Now, I'm sure we all remember that big craze from a few years back, starting with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, followed by books like Little Vampire Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, and Wuthering Bites. I haven't read all of those, but I have read P&P&Z as well as Little Vampire Women, and they were cute and well done and really funny.
This book was not cute. This book was not funny. This book was not well done. This book was stupid, and I do NOT use that word lightly in a professional review.
Here's why I couldn't get past the first thirty pages.
1) Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are horsing around in a very early scene and Mercutio calls Romeo a fat cow. I'm serious. He calls him a fat cow.
Now, these are boys. Girls call each other cows, and guys call girls cows, but I have NEVER heard of a boy calling another boy a fat cow. If a boy DID call another boy that, they'd be laughed at and humiliated for coming up with such a pathetic piece of not-so-witty repartee.
Not only that, but during this time period, these boys were considered to be on the cusp of becoming men. So you'd expect a little more maturity in their insults. I mean, it's not like Romeo and Mercutio don't rag the crud out of each other. They did. Hence why Romeo says things like, "They jest at scars but never felt the wound" (referring to their teasing about his being in love). But it would be on the level of a MAN, not a three-year-old at their first day of preschool.
Also, people did not speak back then as modern teens speak now. Romeo did not use words like "douche bag" and Mercutio did not use words like "dill-weed." That's just common sense. Not that the dialogue has to be all thee, thou, thy, and wherefore, but there's a way to blend the two. Historical fiction is popular among teens, so it's not like people can't get into a slightly more formal language style.
And you can modernize a historical story without destroying its authenticity. Look at A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger. Quite a bit of modernizing in that, but the language was old-style in a lot of it, and yet it was still popular! Not only that, but the modern dialogue didn’t even feel like natural dialogue ANYWAY. So what was the point of having it in the first place?
I'm sorry, but this author's insertion of (pathetic and improperly applied) modern slang feels like condescension to the reader to me, as if she thinks we're too uneducated to understand what the characters are saying unless she brings it down to basically a preschool level. I rarely get offended by a book, but the badly done language bugged the heck out of me.
2) The incredibly hokey portrayal of vampires. In R&J&V, Juliet and all the Capulets are vampires. I'm okay with that. I love vampires. But the vamps in this book are more ridonculous and campy than even the 1930's Dracula with Bela Lugosi and the rubber bat. The effect is muted in Juliet, because she's not a full vampire yet, but you see it in Lady Capulet.
First of all, Lady C has crimson eyes. By itself, I could take it. But she's also got a prominent widow's peak, dark hair, fangs that DON'T retract, and she's so pale that she's sallow. She's like, tallow-colored. She's jaundiced-looking.
Also, she dresses like Elvira or Morticia Addams in the clingy dress with the tendrils on the hems, including a little cape that serves no purpose except to look vampy and doesn't even fall all the way to her feet.
Add onto that the way she enters and leaves the room during the scene where in the play Juliet's mom is like, "Speak briefly: can you like of Paris's love?" In the book, she comes in with her cape draped along her forearm and her forearm in front of her face, FLOATING six or so inches off the ground. Why is she floating? I have NO idea. And she NEVER really stops. It's said that Juliet will start floating too after she becomes a full-fledged vampire.
So basically Claudia Gabel grabbed every schticky, icky, vampy stereotype from those campy movies made in the 1930s-70s and smushed them all together. Maybe she meant it to be funny, like a parody or something…but it wasn't. It wasn't satirical, it wasn't parody-funny, it wasn't funny in any way. It was ridiculous. It's like if one of those caricature sketch-artists off the street looked at Lady Capulet and she said, "Draw me as one of the fiendish undead!"
I love vampires. I love all the different variations found in literature. I've read "The Night Flyer" by Stephen King, PN Elrod's novels about her vampire detective, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Fred Saberhagen's Dracula books, Nina Kiraly's Mina, Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, even the totally adorable novel Bloodthirsty. And I've watched all kinds of movies, from The Hunger to The Lost Boys to Van Helsing to Dracula 2000. And they were all so much better than this. BBC's Young Dracula, The Little Vampire…even Twilight was better, and the sparkly bloodsucking dudes in Twilight aren't even real vampires. That's just sad.
3) Finally, how Juliet has to become a vampire: she has to bite and kill someone. So basically she's given a choice by the author to either give up everyone she loves - her parents, her other family - as well as the life she's known all this time in order to do what's right and not murder an innocent person (it never occurs to her to go after a rapist or a killer)…or she kills someone and becomes evil.
Now, if this book wasn't so hokey, this plotline would be perfect. It would be fine. It would totally work. But you can't take a serious plotline like this, one fraught with emotional introspection and seriously tough choices, and then be like, "And now let's add some crack-acid to liven things up even though it makes people wanna say, 'Go home, book. You're drunk.' Just 'cause we can."
You can't take a plotline this serious, this potentially dynamic, this potentially beautiful, and slather it with all the stupidity heaped up in the first chapter. And if that's the author's way of being like, "Ha, you must wade through the crud to get to the good stuff," well then shame on her, because that's not how it works, since SOMEONE had to shell out money for that book to be available (in this case the library, or whoever donated the book). So I hope that wasn’t why she did that. I doubt it was, actually, but I like to cover my bases. Whatever her reason - she just didn't know any better, she didn't care, whatever - I couldn't finish this book.
So, I'm sorry but this book is 0 stars from me. I literally would have to be paid in order to read it, and it would have to be upwards of $30 because I'm a really busy individual. The only thing I've ever read that was worse than this was a fanfic (the infamous "My Immortal" about Harry Potter). That's saying a lot.
- LA Knight
September 24, 2010
Romeo & Juliet is the classic tragic love story. Whether they've read the play or not, everyone knows exactly what happens. I'm a big fan of William Shakespeare. I feel that his his plays transcend time and readers can easily find situations and themes in them that apply to modern life. I am also a big mash-up fan. I believe that the current trend of adding monsters to classic works is an entertaining way of dusting them off and wowing new readers. But mash-ups need to do more than add monsters to be successful. They need to add them in a way that enriches the story and makes it as good if not better than the original.
Having said that, Romeo & Juliet & Vampires takes the original play and rewrites it in novel format. I like this change. The novel format gives readers an insight into the thoughts and motivations of the characters that just can't be as clearly conveyed in a play. The wording in Romeo & Juliet & Vampires is also changed from the original. This updating into a more modern method of speech may appeal to those new to Shakespeare's works, but I believe it will disappoint long-time fans. What is Romeo & Juliet without memorable phrases like "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet."?
The very general, very basic idea of Romeo & Juliet is all that is left of the original. The vampires take over this reinvention, completely changing the entire story line. Even the famous, unforgettable ending is completely different. In the end, the book isn't even a tragedy anymore.
Romeo & Juliet & Vampires is very easy to read. It could have been more enjoyable if it didn't veer so far from the original or even if it had went a completely different direction making it more paranormal historical fiction. As it is, the book is too close to the original while being very far away from the message the original was trying to convey.
I believe those who have never read the original will find Romeo & Juliet & Vampires very satisfying, but I doubt who loved the tragedy will feel anything other than disappointment. Perhaps Romeo & Juliet was better left untouched.
Having said that, Romeo & Juliet & Vampires takes the original play and rewrites it in novel format. I like this change. The novel format gives readers an insight into the thoughts and motivations of the characters that just can't be as clearly conveyed in a play. The wording in Romeo & Juliet & Vampires is also changed from the original. This updating into a more modern method of speech may appeal to those new to Shakespeare's works, but I believe it will disappoint long-time fans. What is Romeo & Juliet without memorable phrases like "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet."?
The very general, very basic idea of Romeo & Juliet is all that is left of the original. The vampires take over this reinvention, completely changing the entire story line. Even the famous, unforgettable ending is completely different. In the end, the book isn't even a tragedy anymore.
Romeo & Juliet & Vampires is very easy to read. It could have been more enjoyable if it didn't veer so far from the original or even if it had went a completely different direction making it more paranormal historical fiction. As it is, the book is too close to the original while being very far away from the message the original was trying to convey.
I believe those who have never read the original will find Romeo & Juliet & Vampires very satisfying, but I doubt who loved the tragedy will feel anything other than disappointment. Perhaps Romeo & Juliet was better left untouched.
March 9, 2011
REVIEW
This book mixes the classic Romeo and Juliet story with the current vampire trend. While I have read other retellings of classics, this is the first one I’ve read that takes on vampires.
I liked the way that Claudia Gabel kept the setting as the late 1500’s, but did not write it with Shakespearean-speak. I was easily able to read everything and understand it. I am glad that the time frame was not changed to the present times, because it would have totally changed the classic.
My favorite scene is the very beginning when Romeo and Juliet first meet. It’s so romantic and their feelings for each other have not yet been tainted by the feud between their families. I wish they had moved a little slower in deciding to get married, but I suppose that was in keeping with the original. Maybe couples moved quickly back in those times?
I liked this book and think it was an interesting retelling. Thank you to We Love YA! for sending this arc for me to review.
RATING
4 Plot
5 Characters
4 Attention Grabbing
4 Girlie Meter
5 Ending
22 TOTAL
5 STARS
This book mixes the classic Romeo and Juliet story with the current vampire trend. While I have read other retellings of classics, this is the first one I’ve read that takes on vampires.
I liked the way that Claudia Gabel kept the setting as the late 1500’s, but did not write it with Shakespearean-speak. I was easily able to read everything and understand it. I am glad that the time frame was not changed to the present times, because it would have totally changed the classic.
My favorite scene is the very beginning when Romeo and Juliet first meet. It’s so romantic and their feelings for each other have not yet been tainted by the feud between their families. I wish they had moved a little slower in deciding to get married, but I suppose that was in keeping with the original. Maybe couples moved quickly back in those times?
I liked this book and think it was an interesting retelling. Thank you to We Love YA! for sending this arc for me to review.
RATING
4 Plot
5 Characters
4 Attention Grabbing
4 Girlie Meter
5 Ending
22 TOTAL
5 STARS
August 16, 2020
Would've been better as a graphic novel.
October 19, 2018
4.5 stars. Everything was okay. I love how the plot goes and how they didn't change much from the real concept. However, I'm very quite disappointed with how it ends. It seems like the author was rushed to finish the book. Full review will be in my blog.
March 14, 2022
Every month I'm picking one book from my TBR to read to clean the shelf up. This one has been getting dusty from 2013...so I finally tried it just to get rid of it. And I was pleasantly surprised. Very well written, this was from an era of YA books where all classics were given a supernatural make over. My biggest issues were just the actual Romeo and Juliet story, and this being written so well just makes the original story's faults so glaringly apparent. I wanted so much more! Juliet doesn't want to be a vampire, her parents are trying to overthrow the Prince, the Montagues are just barely here... what is up with Count Paris?!? Romeo and Juliet's insta-love was annoying and felt so out of place with their fleshed out characters in this narrative...and the rushed ending was a major disappointment.
I did have fun with this, however and I'm glad I gave it a shot because it was a quick read and I did find myself invested in the tale.
I did have fun with this, however and I'm glad I gave it a shot because it was a quick read and I did find myself invested in the tale.
July 23, 2019
that was a fucking dumb ending....so fucking dumb......it's supposed to be a tragedy!! YA DUMB
November 10, 2016
Clever twist on Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. I don't usually read retellings of classics but I'm very interested in the vampire trend & I thought that it would be a good read. I loved the writing style but I do think that classics should be left as they are. ☺️
not-for-me
May 14, 2012Exits, screaming.
May 10, 2020
First things, first: Cover looks terrible af. This is a common problem for people like me who visualizes the characters differently from the characters provided in the cover.
Second: Why change Juliet's age? Even if the author wrote Juliet as a 15-turning-16 years old girl, she still acted immaturely (might as well remained younger).
Third: Why change the ending? The original was a tragedy.
Second: Why change Juliet's age? Even if the author wrote Juliet as a 15-turning-16 years old girl, she still acted immaturely (might as well remained younger).
Third: Why change the ending? The original was a tragedy.
July 5, 2022
Started out with a promising idea, but after the first tenth of the novel, it really dissipated. The writing was shitty and everything else followed that.
Read 24%.
Read 24%.
November 13, 2019
A quick, cozy, retake on the classic Shakespeare.
February 21, 2025
I wanted to hate this.
Alas, I enjoyed it.
The writing is a 2, but I liked the vampire spin and the ending was surprisingly satisfying.
Alas, I enjoyed it.
The writing is a 2, but I liked the vampire spin and the ending was surprisingly satisfying.
April 20, 2023
I bought this book for a $1 and regret nothing
September 6, 2010
3.5 out of 5
This is not the type of book that I normally pick out to read. Especially after my mom read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and was cringing the entire book. But I have to say, I actually had fun reading this. I think it may be because I'm not a huge "classics" reader, so I'm not going to be offended by the changes that Claudia made to the original script. It only took me a day to read, and I enjoyed revisiting the world of Romeo and Juliet. This twist on it just made all the more fun for me to read. I'm the type who loves remakes with a twist, though. (I loved the Claire Danes version of this play!)
The storyline follows pretty closely to the original story, with small changes splattered across the pages. Yes, I say "splattered" because many of those changes involve blood. Not surprising, considering Juliet's entire family, the Capulets, are vampires, who would love nothing more than to be let loose on the human population. However, they have to deal with the vampire-hunting Montagues, who are just as eager to dole out death and punishment to all the vampires. The writing is prose instead of verse, and it used more modern day language, though it was still set in 1462. But this time the story takes place in Transylvania instead of Verona.
All of the same characters appear in this book. Mercutio and Tybalt are just as rash and infuriating, Romeo and Juliet are just as love-sick and ridiculous, and the Montagues and Capulets are just as blind to the destruction they are causing in their families. There were some difference though. Romeo and Juliet were much less self-absorbed in this book. They actually cared about the feud going on between their families before they even met. And Juliet would do anything to escape killing a human, because she believed that it was wrong, regardless of what her family told her. Then there was the blood....let's just say the "sword fight" between Mercutio and Tybalt had a little livelier end to it!
Even though I have known this story most of my life, I still found myself rooting for Romeo and Juliet. Hoping that somehow, this time, they would find a way to be together and make it work. But in this book, it seemed even more impossible than ever. Did they change their fate and live happily ever after? I guess you'll just have to read it to find out!
This is not the type of book that I normally pick out to read. Especially after my mom read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and was cringing the entire book. But I have to say, I actually had fun reading this. I think it may be because I'm not a huge "classics" reader, so I'm not going to be offended by the changes that Claudia made to the original script. It only took me a day to read, and I enjoyed revisiting the world of Romeo and Juliet. This twist on it just made all the more fun for me to read. I'm the type who loves remakes with a twist, though. (I loved the Claire Danes version of this play!)
The storyline follows pretty closely to the original story, with small changes splattered across the pages. Yes, I say "splattered" because many of those changes involve blood. Not surprising, considering Juliet's entire family, the Capulets, are vampires, who would love nothing more than to be let loose on the human population. However, they have to deal with the vampire-hunting Montagues, who are just as eager to dole out death and punishment to all the vampires. The writing is prose instead of verse, and it used more modern day language, though it was still set in 1462. But this time the story takes place in Transylvania instead of Verona.
All of the same characters appear in this book. Mercutio and Tybalt are just as rash and infuriating, Romeo and Juliet are just as love-sick and ridiculous, and the Montagues and Capulets are just as blind to the destruction they are causing in their families. There were some difference though. Romeo and Juliet were much less self-absorbed in this book. They actually cared about the feud going on between their families before they even met. And Juliet would do anything to escape killing a human, because she believed that it was wrong, regardless of what her family told her. Then there was the blood....let's just say the "sword fight" between Mercutio and Tybalt had a little livelier end to it!
Even though I have known this story most of my life, I still found myself rooting for Romeo and Juliet. Hoping that somehow, this time, they would find a way to be together and make it work. But in this book, it seemed even more impossible than ever. Did they change their fate and live happily ever after? I guess you'll just have to read it to find out!
October 7, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. I liked that it was a Romeo and Juliet but with a twist, I love the action and romance it was so perfect, a real page turner. I also like that not only have I read the story, but two of my children can read the story as well. ( they don't openly talk about sex, but they give the older people the understanding that it happened.) I really like the whole vampire and human story, I think it would awesome if that were true but super scary to live out. Reading this book makes me want to read the true story of Romeo and Juliet I have never wanted to read it before. There really is a lot happening in this story it is not just action or romance in this story there really was a lot to understand and learn from it. I hope they could make a movie out of this one it would be amazing to see on the screen.
Even though this book has many bad reviews I would highly recommend this story to the audience that it is ment for. Young Adult. Even myself an Adult I really enjoyed the story.
Even though this book has many bad reviews I would highly recommend this story to the audience that it is ment for. Young Adult. Even myself an Adult I really enjoyed the story.
December 19, 2011
This book is a wonderful retelling of Romeo & Juliet ... With a vampire twist , of course !
I chanced upon this thin book and anticipated myself for a mindless retelling of the famous romance but surprisingly I really liked it . The fact that Romeo & Juliet DIDN'T die tragically helped too (:
Thumbs up !
I chanced upon this thin book and anticipated myself for a mindless retelling of the famous romance but surprisingly I really liked it . The fact that Romeo & Juliet DIDN'T die tragically helped too (:
Thumbs up !
Read
August 12, 2010I learned that writing about classic literary characters and adding a strong supernatural element is crazy fun! I really hope that people love it.
April 30, 2015
This is actually pretty funny, I enjoyed it.
December 2, 2023
This book was brilliant in just how dreadfully awful it was. I loved to hate it.
June 12, 2025
Du bist kurz vor deinem 16ten Geburtstag
Und du weißt, dass du ab da ein Leben führen musst,
welches du kategorisch ablehnst.
Aber was willst du tun, wenn du ein Vampir bist
und dein Schicksal vorbestimmt ist?
Und kann man als blutsaugendes Monster überhaupt lieben?
Zum Inhalt (Booklet):
Es war die Fledermaus und nicht die Lerche. Im fernen Transsilvanien kämpfen zwei Dynastien um die Macht: Die Capulets, sie sind Vampire, jagen die Montagues ihres kostbaren Blutes wegen. Im Gegenzug versuchen diese, sie auszurotten. Die Feindschaft der Sippen hat schon unzählige Opfer gefordert. Auch ein Pakt zwischen Lord Capulet und König Radu bringt nicht den erhofften Frieden. Da geschieht etwas Unerhörtes: Die Tochter Lord Capulets, Julia, weigert sich, standesgemäß zu heiraten. Den Grund darf sie nicht nennen: Sie ist in Romeo verliebt. Einen Menschen ...Die berühmte Geschichte von Romeo & Julia mit Vampiren.
Cover:
Das Cover finde ich sehr gut gelungen. Wir sehen hier ein recht düsteres Ambiente, welches regelrecht nach Vampir schreit. Wir sehen außerdem auf meinem Cover ein Liebespaar sowie das Schemen einer alten Burg, passend zum Inhalt der Geschichte. Wir bekommen hier also die Grundinformationen zum Buch geliefert und Freunde der dunklen Literatur werden hier gern zugreifen.
Eigener Eindruck:
Transsilvanien. Vlad der Pfähler musste seinem Konkurrenten König Radu weichen und mit ihm seine blutrünstige Schar Vampire, welche ihm einst zur Macht verhalfen. Viel aus den glanzvollen Zeiten ist den Vampiren nicht geblieben, außer einer Burg und einem Pakt, welcher sie und die Jäger zu einem Waffenstillstand zwingt. Julia lebt ein recht einsames Leben auf der Burg ihrer Eltern und soll zu ihrem 16ten Geburtstag endlich ein vollwertiger Vampir werden, was ihr jedoch sehr missfällt. Doch das soll noch nicht das Schlimmste sein, denn schon bald soll sie zwangsverheiratet werden und das mit dem scheinbar schlimmsten Ekel den die Vampirwelt zu bieten hat. Die Capulets versuchen indessen ihre Macht wieder auszuweiten und dafür ist ihnen jedes Mittel recht. Vor allem der Pakt mit den Montagues ist ihnen ein Dorn im Auge, aber anders herum hält sich die Begeisterung der Jäger ebenfalls in Grenzen. Hier lebt der verträumte Romeo, welcher von seinen Mitstreitern eher belächelt wird. Als er auf die junge Julia trifft scheint es um die beiden schnell geschehen, doch es ist eine Liebe, die nicht sein darf und die beiden in einen Strudel aus Verzweiflung, Intrigen und ganz viel Drama zieht.
Tja, da haben wir sie wieder. Eine Neuinterpretation einer Geschichte, der man kaum das Wasser reichen kann und deren „Neuauflage“ durchaus eine Herausforderung ist. Die Autorin hatte hier wirklich viele Ideen, die sie auch recht anschaulich umgesetzt hat. Der Schreibstil besticht allemal und ich war begeistert, wie schnell ich in die Geschichte hineingekommen bin. Aber leider wurde es an vielen Stellen holprig, denn szenenweise ist man hier regelrecht durch die Geschichte gehechtet. Dann wiederum wurde es auch einmal richtig öde, denn es fehlte einfach an neuen, frischen Ideen. Zudem wurde sich einiger plumper Mittel bedient, die immer wieder in solchen Geschichten vorkommen und doch hätten neu verpackt werden können, gar andere Wendungen wären doch möglich gewesen! Zwar bekommen wir hier ein Happy End, was für mich dann doch wieder ein ganz großer Pluspunkt war, aber für mich hat leider das Gesamtpaket nicht wirklich gestimmt. Mit mehr Details hätte man Emotionen noch mehr transportieren können, man hätte viel mehr mit dieser neuen Liebe spielen können. Vielleicht hatte ich auch zu hohe Erwartungen, wer weiß... aber wenn man sich schon an einem solch großen Vorgänger wagt, so sollte man solchen Erwartungen doch gerecht werden. So war das Buch für mich ein netter Zeitvertreib, aber leider nicht überragend.
Fazit:
Konnte mich leider so ganz und gar nicht überzeugen, vor allem, weil es eben nur eine Adaption zu Romeo und Julia ist und mir hier einfach der richtig spannende Esprit gefehlt hat. Die Grundlage der Geschichte war von Anfang an klar und es ist schwer solch einer Geschichte ein Krönchen aufzusetzen. Schade.
Idee: 4/5
Charaktere: 3/5
Logik: 3/5
Spannung: 2/5
Emotionen: 3/5
Gesamt: 3/5
Daten:
ISBN: 9783688108732
Sprache: Deutsch
Ausgabe: Taschenbuch
Umfang: 238 Seiten
Verlag: ROWOHLT Repertoire
Erscheinungsdatum: 24.01.2018
Und du weißt, dass du ab da ein Leben führen musst,
welches du kategorisch ablehnst.
Aber was willst du tun, wenn du ein Vampir bist
und dein Schicksal vorbestimmt ist?
Und kann man als blutsaugendes Monster überhaupt lieben?
Zum Inhalt (Booklet):
Es war die Fledermaus und nicht die Lerche. Im fernen Transsilvanien kämpfen zwei Dynastien um die Macht: Die Capulets, sie sind Vampire, jagen die Montagues ihres kostbaren Blutes wegen. Im Gegenzug versuchen diese, sie auszurotten. Die Feindschaft der Sippen hat schon unzählige Opfer gefordert. Auch ein Pakt zwischen Lord Capulet und König Radu bringt nicht den erhofften Frieden. Da geschieht etwas Unerhörtes: Die Tochter Lord Capulets, Julia, weigert sich, standesgemäß zu heiraten. Den Grund darf sie nicht nennen: Sie ist in Romeo verliebt. Einen Menschen ...Die berühmte Geschichte von Romeo & Julia mit Vampiren.
Cover:
Das Cover finde ich sehr gut gelungen. Wir sehen hier ein recht düsteres Ambiente, welches regelrecht nach Vampir schreit. Wir sehen außerdem auf meinem Cover ein Liebespaar sowie das Schemen einer alten Burg, passend zum Inhalt der Geschichte. Wir bekommen hier also die Grundinformationen zum Buch geliefert und Freunde der dunklen Literatur werden hier gern zugreifen.
Eigener Eindruck:
Transsilvanien. Vlad der Pfähler musste seinem Konkurrenten König Radu weichen und mit ihm seine blutrünstige Schar Vampire, welche ihm einst zur Macht verhalfen. Viel aus den glanzvollen Zeiten ist den Vampiren nicht geblieben, außer einer Burg und einem Pakt, welcher sie und die Jäger zu einem Waffenstillstand zwingt. Julia lebt ein recht einsames Leben auf der Burg ihrer Eltern und soll zu ihrem 16ten Geburtstag endlich ein vollwertiger Vampir werden, was ihr jedoch sehr missfällt. Doch das soll noch nicht das Schlimmste sein, denn schon bald soll sie zwangsverheiratet werden und das mit dem scheinbar schlimmsten Ekel den die Vampirwelt zu bieten hat. Die Capulets versuchen indessen ihre Macht wieder auszuweiten und dafür ist ihnen jedes Mittel recht. Vor allem der Pakt mit den Montagues ist ihnen ein Dorn im Auge, aber anders herum hält sich die Begeisterung der Jäger ebenfalls in Grenzen. Hier lebt der verträumte Romeo, welcher von seinen Mitstreitern eher belächelt wird. Als er auf die junge Julia trifft scheint es um die beiden schnell geschehen, doch es ist eine Liebe, die nicht sein darf und die beiden in einen Strudel aus Verzweiflung, Intrigen und ganz viel Drama zieht.
Tja, da haben wir sie wieder. Eine Neuinterpretation einer Geschichte, der man kaum das Wasser reichen kann und deren „Neuauflage“ durchaus eine Herausforderung ist. Die Autorin hatte hier wirklich viele Ideen, die sie auch recht anschaulich umgesetzt hat. Der Schreibstil besticht allemal und ich war begeistert, wie schnell ich in die Geschichte hineingekommen bin. Aber leider wurde es an vielen Stellen holprig, denn szenenweise ist man hier regelrecht durch die Geschichte gehechtet. Dann wiederum wurde es auch einmal richtig öde, denn es fehlte einfach an neuen, frischen Ideen. Zudem wurde sich einiger plumper Mittel bedient, die immer wieder in solchen Geschichten vorkommen und doch hätten neu verpackt werden können, gar andere Wendungen wären doch möglich gewesen! Zwar bekommen wir hier ein Happy End, was für mich dann doch wieder ein ganz großer Pluspunkt war, aber für mich hat leider das Gesamtpaket nicht wirklich gestimmt. Mit mehr Details hätte man Emotionen noch mehr transportieren können, man hätte viel mehr mit dieser neuen Liebe spielen können. Vielleicht hatte ich auch zu hohe Erwartungen, wer weiß... aber wenn man sich schon an einem solch großen Vorgänger wagt, so sollte man solchen Erwartungen doch gerecht werden. So war das Buch für mich ein netter Zeitvertreib, aber leider nicht überragend.
Fazit:
Konnte mich leider so ganz und gar nicht überzeugen, vor allem, weil es eben nur eine Adaption zu Romeo und Julia ist und mir hier einfach der richtig spannende Esprit gefehlt hat. Die Grundlage der Geschichte war von Anfang an klar und es ist schwer solch einer Geschichte ein Krönchen aufzusetzen. Schade.
Idee: 4/5
Charaktere: 3/5
Logik: 3/5
Spannung: 2/5
Emotionen: 3/5
Gesamt: 3/5
Daten:
ISBN: 9783688108732
Sprache: Deutsch
Ausgabe: Taschenbuch
Umfang: 238 Seiten
Verlag: ROWOHLT Repertoire
Erscheinungsdatum: 24.01.2018
February 26, 2021
So she's supposed to turn into a vampire only if she drinks all of someone's blood (or die) but she didn't do that and still turned which kind of annoys me because of the lack of continuity.
These are the parts I liked:
P88-89
Romeo placed his hat back on. "I have no ill will toward you, Juliet. And I don't care what either of our families has done to each other. I only want to make you happy."
"How did you find me here?" Juliet said with a smile so big, her cheeks hurt a little.
"It was by chance," Roberto said, his eyes never drifting away from her. "But from now on, I will no longer leave ourfate up to the whims of the universe."
P90
"This is absurd." Juliet laughed in spite v of herself. "And I do not know how you can find this funny!"
"I do not understand it either. But absurd or not, when it comes to these feelings I have for you, the last thing I want to do is ask questions," Romeo said.
Then he got down on one knee, and added: "Except for one... Will you marry me?"
Juliet felt like her whole body was weightless, and that any moment now, she'd float up into the clouds.
"I pledge all that I have and am to you. " Romeo continued to talk as Juliet remained in a daze.
P96-97
"Romeo followed him, but stopped cold when he caught his reflection in a brass kettle. He had spent the late hours of the night stargazing in his favorite pasture, so he should not have been surprised to see dark circles under his eyes and slivers of grass tangled in his hair. What amazed him was how invigorated and intoxicated he felt, despite his haggard appearance. Truly, the joy that Juliet had brought into his life had infected every cell of his body
"Are you hungry? I made some porridge." Friar Laurence poured since of the hot mixture into a bowl.
"No, my belly is just as full as my heart!" Romeo said. "I could go months without food, but not a single day without my lady."
"Ah, spoken like a man who has been struck by a thousand of Cupid's arrows,." Friar Laurence smiled and then took a bite of the porridge.
P117
When Romeo kissed her for the first time, Juliet thought his lips tasted like the finest powdered sugar. They were also unbelievably soft, just like the tulip petals in early spring. The feeling that was stirring inside of her was like nothing she had ever known. It was as though her soul had been asleep for hundreds of years, and was now slowly waking up to a world that was made entirely out of sunlight.
P156
"Are you concerned about whether I'll still love you as a vampire?" Romeo interjected.
Juliet managed a small nod.
"Darling, my love for you today is greater than it was for you yesterday, and I will be true to you. Always," Romeo said.
These are the parts I liked:
P88-89
Romeo placed his hat back on. "I have no ill will toward you, Juliet. And I don't care what either of our families has done to each other. I only want to make you happy."
"How did you find me here?" Juliet said with a smile so big, her cheeks hurt a little.
"It was by chance," Roberto said, his eyes never drifting away from her. "But from now on, I will no longer leave ourfate up to the whims of the universe."
P90
"This is absurd." Juliet laughed in spite v of herself. "And I do not know how you can find this funny!"
"I do not understand it either. But absurd or not, when it comes to these feelings I have for you, the last thing I want to do is ask questions," Romeo said.
Then he got down on one knee, and added: "Except for one... Will you marry me?"
Juliet felt like her whole body was weightless, and that any moment now, she'd float up into the clouds.
"I pledge all that I have and am to you. " Romeo continued to talk as Juliet remained in a daze.
P96-97
"Romeo followed him, but stopped cold when he caught his reflection in a brass kettle. He had spent the late hours of the night stargazing in his favorite pasture, so he should not have been surprised to see dark circles under his eyes and slivers of grass tangled in his hair. What amazed him was how invigorated and intoxicated he felt, despite his haggard appearance. Truly, the joy that Juliet had brought into his life had infected every cell of his body
"Are you hungry? I made some porridge." Friar Laurence poured since of the hot mixture into a bowl.
"No, my belly is just as full as my heart!" Romeo said. "I could go months without food, but not a single day without my lady."
"Ah, spoken like a man who has been struck by a thousand of Cupid's arrows,." Friar Laurence smiled and then took a bite of the porridge.
P117
When Romeo kissed her for the first time, Juliet thought his lips tasted like the finest powdered sugar. They were also unbelievably soft, just like the tulip petals in early spring. The feeling that was stirring inside of her was like nothing she had ever known. It was as though her soul had been asleep for hundreds of years, and was now slowly waking up to a world that was made entirely out of sunlight.
P156
"Are you concerned about whether I'll still love you as a vampire?" Romeo interjected.
Juliet managed a small nod.
"Darling, my love for you today is greater than it was for you yesterday, and I will be true to you. Always," Romeo said.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 19, 2014
All right, people. I almost never do this. In fact, I can't think of a book I've read other than the one I'm about to review where I've done this. But I actually picked up a book, read about 30 pages, and then debated whether to set it on fire or feed it to my deadly piranhas. This is the only book that's ever provoked me that way. And I have read many a book that was badly done, but never one that disappointed me so much.
I am referring to Romeo and Juliet and Vampires, supposedly adapted from Shakespeare by Claudia Gabel.
Now, I'm sure we all remember that big craze from a few years back, starting with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, followed by books like Little Vampire Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, and Wuthering Bites. I haven't read all of those, but I have read P&P&Z as well as Little Vampire Women, and they were cute and well done and really funny.
This book was not cute. This book was not funny. This book was not well done. This book was stupid, and I do not use that word lightly in a professional review.
Here's why I couldn't get past the first thirty pages.
1) The language. Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are horsing around in a very early scene and Mercutio calls Romeo a fat cow. I'm serious. He calls him a fat cow.
Now, these are boys. Girls call each other cows, and guys call girls cows, but I have never heard of a boy calling another boy a fat cow. If a boy did call another boy that, they'd be laughed at and humiliated for coming up with such a pathetic piece of not-so-witty repartee.
Not only that, but during this time period, these boys were considered to be on the cusp of becoming men. So you'd expect a little more maturity in their insults. I mean, it's not like Romeo and Mercutio don't rag the crud out of each other. They did. Hence why Romeo says things like, "They jest at scars but never felt the wound" (referring to their teasing about his being in love). But it would be on the level of a man, not a three-year-old at their first day of preschool.
Also, people did not speak back then as modern teens speak now. Romeo did not use words like "douche bag" and Mercutio did not use words like "dill-weed." That's just common sense. Not that the dialogue has to be all thee, thou, thy, and wherefore, but there's a way to blend the two. Historical fiction is popular among teens, so it's not like people can't get into a slightly more formal language style.
And you can modernize a historical story without destroying its authenticity. Look at A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger. Quite a bit of modernizing in that, but the language was old-style in a lot of it, and yet it was still popular! Not only that, but the modern dialogue in this book didn’t even feel like natural dialogue anyway. So what was the point of having it in the first place?
I'm sorry, but this author's insertion of (pathetic and improperly applied) modern slang feels like condescension to the reader to me, as if she thinks we're too uneducated to understand what the characters are saying unless she brings it down to basically a preschool level. I rarely get offended by a book, but the badly done language bugged the heck out of me.
2) The incredibly hokey portrayal of vampires. In R&J&V, Juliet and all the Capulets are vampires. I'm okay with that. I love vampires. But the vamps in this book are more ridonculous and campy than even the 1930's Dracula with Bela Lugosi and the rubber bat. The effect is muted in Juliet, because she's not a full vampire yet, but you see it in Lady Capulet.
First of all, Lady C has crimson eyes. By itself, I could take it. But she's also got a prominent widow's peak, dark hair, fangs that don't retract, and she's so pale that she's sallow. She's like, tallow-colored. She's jaundiced-looking.
Also, she dresses like Elvira or Morticia Addams in the clingy dress with the tendrils on the hems, including a little cape that serves no purpose except to look vampy and doesn't even fall all the way to her feet.
Add onto that the way she enters and leaves the room during the scene where in the play Juliet's mom is like, "Speak briefly: can you like of Paris's love?" In the book, she comes in with her cape draped along her forearm and her forearm in front of her face, floating six or so inches off the ground. Why is she floating? I have NO idea. And she never really stops. It's said that Juliet will start floating too after she becomes a full-fledged vampire.
So basically Claudia Gabel grabbed every schticky, icky, vampy stereotype from those campy movies made in the 1930s-70s and smushed them all together. Maybe she meant it to be funny, like a parody or something…but it wasn't. It wasn't satirical, it wasn't parody-funny, it wasn't funny in any way. It was ridiculous. It's like if one of those caricature sketch-artists off the street looked at Lady Capulet and she said, "Draw me as one of the fiendish undead!"
I love vampires. I love all the different variations found in literature. I've read "The Night Flyer" by Stephen King, PN Elrod's novels about her vampire detective, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Fred Saberhagen's Dracula books, Nina Kiraly's Mina, Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, even the totally adorable novel Bloodthirsty. And I've watched all kinds of movies, from The Hunger to The Lost Boys to Van Helsing to Dracula 2000. And they were all so much better than this. BBC's Young Dracula, The Little Vampire…even Twilight was better, and the sparkly bloodsucking dudes in Twilight aren't even real vampires. That's just sad.
3) Finally, how Juliet has to become a vampire: she has to bite and kill someone. So basically she's given a choice by the author to either give up everyone she loves - her parents, her other family - as well as the life she's known all this time in order to do what's right and not murder an innocent person (it never occurs to her to go after a rapist or a killer)…or she kills someone and becomes evil.
Now, if this book wasn't so hokey, this plotline would be perfect. It would be fine. It would totally work. But you can't take a serious plotline like this, one fraught with emotional introspection and seriously tough choices, and then be like, "And now let's add some crack-acid to liven things up even though it makes people wanna say, 'Go home, book. You're drunk.' Just 'cause we can."
You can't take a plotline this serious, this potentially dynamic, this potentially beautiful, and slather it with all the stupidity heaped up in the first chapter. And if that's the author's way of being like, "Ha, you must wade through the crud to get to the good stuff," well then shame on her, because that's not how it works, since someone had to shell out money for that book to be available (in this case the library, or whoever donated the book). So I hope that wasn’t why she did that. I doubt it was, actually, but I like to cover my bases. Whatever her reason - she just didn't know any better, she didn't care, whatever - I couldn't finish this book.
So, I'm sorry but this book is 0 stars from me. I literally would have to be paid in order to read it, and it would have to be upwards of $30 because I'm a really busy individual. The only thing I've ever read that was worse than this was a fanfic (the infamous "My Immortal" about Harry Potter). That's saying a lot.
- LA Knight
I am referring to Romeo and Juliet and Vampires, supposedly adapted from Shakespeare by Claudia Gabel.
Now, I'm sure we all remember that big craze from a few years back, starting with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, followed by books like Little Vampire Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, and Wuthering Bites. I haven't read all of those, but I have read P&P&Z as well as Little Vampire Women, and they were cute and well done and really funny.
This book was not cute. This book was not funny. This book was not well done. This book was stupid, and I do not use that word lightly in a professional review.
Here's why I couldn't get past the first thirty pages.
1) The language. Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are horsing around in a very early scene and Mercutio calls Romeo a fat cow. I'm serious. He calls him a fat cow.
Now, these are boys. Girls call each other cows, and guys call girls cows, but I have never heard of a boy calling another boy a fat cow. If a boy did call another boy that, they'd be laughed at and humiliated for coming up with such a pathetic piece of not-so-witty repartee.
Not only that, but during this time period, these boys were considered to be on the cusp of becoming men. So you'd expect a little more maturity in their insults. I mean, it's not like Romeo and Mercutio don't rag the crud out of each other. They did. Hence why Romeo says things like, "They jest at scars but never felt the wound" (referring to their teasing about his being in love). But it would be on the level of a man, not a three-year-old at their first day of preschool.
Also, people did not speak back then as modern teens speak now. Romeo did not use words like "douche bag" and Mercutio did not use words like "dill-weed." That's just common sense. Not that the dialogue has to be all thee, thou, thy, and wherefore, but there's a way to blend the two. Historical fiction is popular among teens, so it's not like people can't get into a slightly more formal language style.
And you can modernize a historical story without destroying its authenticity. Look at A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger. Quite a bit of modernizing in that, but the language was old-style in a lot of it, and yet it was still popular! Not only that, but the modern dialogue in this book didn’t even feel like natural dialogue anyway. So what was the point of having it in the first place?
I'm sorry, but this author's insertion of (pathetic and improperly applied) modern slang feels like condescension to the reader to me, as if she thinks we're too uneducated to understand what the characters are saying unless she brings it down to basically a preschool level. I rarely get offended by a book, but the badly done language bugged the heck out of me.
2) The incredibly hokey portrayal of vampires. In R&J&V, Juliet and all the Capulets are vampires. I'm okay with that. I love vampires. But the vamps in this book are more ridonculous and campy than even the 1930's Dracula with Bela Lugosi and the rubber bat. The effect is muted in Juliet, because she's not a full vampire yet, but you see it in Lady Capulet.
First of all, Lady C has crimson eyes. By itself, I could take it. But she's also got a prominent widow's peak, dark hair, fangs that don't retract, and she's so pale that she's sallow. She's like, tallow-colored. She's jaundiced-looking.
Also, she dresses like Elvira or Morticia Addams in the clingy dress with the tendrils on the hems, including a little cape that serves no purpose except to look vampy and doesn't even fall all the way to her feet.
Add onto that the way she enters and leaves the room during the scene where in the play Juliet's mom is like, "Speak briefly: can you like of Paris's love?" In the book, she comes in with her cape draped along her forearm and her forearm in front of her face, floating six or so inches off the ground. Why is she floating? I have NO idea. And she never really stops. It's said that Juliet will start floating too after she becomes a full-fledged vampire.
So basically Claudia Gabel grabbed every schticky, icky, vampy stereotype from those campy movies made in the 1930s-70s and smushed them all together. Maybe she meant it to be funny, like a parody or something…but it wasn't. It wasn't satirical, it wasn't parody-funny, it wasn't funny in any way. It was ridiculous. It's like if one of those caricature sketch-artists off the street looked at Lady Capulet and she said, "Draw me as one of the fiendish undead!"
I love vampires. I love all the different variations found in literature. I've read "The Night Flyer" by Stephen King, PN Elrod's novels about her vampire detective, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Fred Saberhagen's Dracula books, Nina Kiraly's Mina, Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, even the totally adorable novel Bloodthirsty. And I've watched all kinds of movies, from The Hunger to The Lost Boys to Van Helsing to Dracula 2000. And they were all so much better than this. BBC's Young Dracula, The Little Vampire…even Twilight was better, and the sparkly bloodsucking dudes in Twilight aren't even real vampires. That's just sad.
3) Finally, how Juliet has to become a vampire: she has to bite and kill someone. So basically she's given a choice by the author to either give up everyone she loves - her parents, her other family - as well as the life she's known all this time in order to do what's right and not murder an innocent person (it never occurs to her to go after a rapist or a killer)…or she kills someone and becomes evil.
Now, if this book wasn't so hokey, this plotline would be perfect. It would be fine. It would totally work. But you can't take a serious plotline like this, one fraught with emotional introspection and seriously tough choices, and then be like, "And now let's add some crack-acid to liven things up even though it makes people wanna say, 'Go home, book. You're drunk.' Just 'cause we can."
You can't take a plotline this serious, this potentially dynamic, this potentially beautiful, and slather it with all the stupidity heaped up in the first chapter. And if that's the author's way of being like, "Ha, you must wade through the crud to get to the good stuff," well then shame on her, because that's not how it works, since someone had to shell out money for that book to be available (in this case the library, or whoever donated the book). So I hope that wasn’t why she did that. I doubt it was, actually, but I like to cover my bases. Whatever her reason - she just didn't know any better, she didn't care, whatever - I couldn't finish this book.
So, I'm sorry but this book is 0 stars from me. I literally would have to be paid in order to read it, and it would have to be upwards of $30 because I'm a really busy individual. The only thing I've ever read that was worse than this was a fanfic (the infamous "My Immortal" about Harry Potter). That's saying a lot.
- LA Knight
May 28, 2022
This novel adds little to Shakespeare’s text, save for the inclusion of the nosferatu. It does give interesting additions, such as the notion that there are vampire families. Among them, a family member is normal and human up until their 16th birthday. Then vampiric changes come upon them: their reflections and shadows disappear; skin tones become pallid; eye colors turn a uniform ruby red; they sprout fangs, long, tough nails, an overwhelming bloodlust and float six inches in the air.
The age-old feud between the Capulets and the Montagues is given new meaning by the fact that the wealthy, aristocratic Capulets are a family of vampires and the Montagues are sworn vampire hunters. Their enmity has lasted centuries as both sides have preyed upon and attacked members of the other. The peace treaty imposed by Prince Radu, half-brother to Prince Vladimir, is meant to halt the fighting and bloodshed. Vampires are to subsist on animal blood and Montagues are to refrain from killing vampires.
Neither side is easy or comfortable with this peace. Into this comes our star-cross’d lovers, who fall in love at first sight. Here, Shakespeare’s play is shown in all its foolishness. Romeo’s abrupt love for Rosaline disappears like a poof of smoke as he tumbles head over heels for an unknown beauty at a party. They don’t know or even ask each other’s name and yet they’re suddenly wild for each other.
Put in plain prose, it seems utterly ridiculous, as is the speed in which they make plans to meet and marry and then hide their feelings and actions from their families. The collusion of Juliet’s nurse and Friar Laurence makes even less sense here. Juliet is about to become a vampire, something Romeo and the friar are well aware of, and the two youngsters haven’t given any real thought as to how they’re going to handle that.
The novel drives on to its grim conclusion and yet the author manages to give it an unexpected ending. Death isn’t death, after all, when vampires are involved and the solution is as elegant as it is surprising. However, the story ends on an uncertain note. Vampires are bloodsuckers, after all. Few of them are pacifistic or keep the same morals that humans do. The author makes sure that we don’t forget what is lurking in the shadows.
The age-old feud between the Capulets and the Montagues is given new meaning by the fact that the wealthy, aristocratic Capulets are a family of vampires and the Montagues are sworn vampire hunters. Their enmity has lasted centuries as both sides have preyed upon and attacked members of the other. The peace treaty imposed by Prince Radu, half-brother to Prince Vladimir, is meant to halt the fighting and bloodshed. Vampires are to subsist on animal blood and Montagues are to refrain from killing vampires.
Neither side is easy or comfortable with this peace. Into this comes our star-cross’d lovers, who fall in love at first sight. Here, Shakespeare’s play is shown in all its foolishness. Romeo’s abrupt love for Rosaline disappears like a poof of smoke as he tumbles head over heels for an unknown beauty at a party. They don’t know or even ask each other’s name and yet they’re suddenly wild for each other.
Put in plain prose, it seems utterly ridiculous, as is the speed in which they make plans to meet and marry and then hide their feelings and actions from their families. The collusion of Juliet’s nurse and Friar Laurence makes even less sense here. Juliet is about to become a vampire, something Romeo and the friar are well aware of, and the two youngsters haven’t given any real thought as to how they’re going to handle that.
The novel drives on to its grim conclusion and yet the author manages to give it an unexpected ending. Death isn’t death, after all, when vampires are involved and the solution is as elegant as it is surprising. However, the story ends on an uncertain note. Vampires are bloodsuckers, after all. Few of them are pacifistic or keep the same morals that humans do. The author makes sure that we don’t forget what is lurking in the shadows.
July 28, 2018
I would have enjoyed it more were it not aggressively trying to BE Romeo and Juliet, well a modern re-telling. The author could have even done a poor restructuring of a vampire story into the storyline of it without actually trying to be it and it would have been better. Perhaps Pride and Prejudice and Zombies work so well because it was told in the style of Jane Austen and the original material was not a tragedy by arguably the best writer in the English-speaking world. Big shoes and it’s a tragedy. They’re supposed to die! While technically, they die, they don’t. It destroys the beauty and ache Shakespeare emphasized in his work. The trouble with imitating a great is that you can’t avoid being compared to it. You have to make a parody and it’s hard to make a parody of a tragedy.
Additionally, it was very hard to read things like how Romeo “was going to punch [someone’s] lights out.” Seriously? I couldn’t even get into it. You set it as a period piece. Use period language or at lease avoid clearly modern idiomatic expressions.
Do not recommend, even for angsty teens. No lie, Twilight was better.
Additionally, it was very hard to read things like how Romeo “was going to punch [someone’s] lights out.” Seriously? I couldn’t even get into it. You set it as a period piece. Use period language or at lease avoid clearly modern idiomatic expressions.
Do not recommend, even for angsty teens. No lie, Twilight was better.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2011
"Mainstreamwelle erobert altbekannte Klassiker …"
Inhalt:
“Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” handelt von Romeo und Julia, die einander lieben, obwohl sie verfeindeten Familien angehören. Julia gehört hier zu der Vampirfamilie der Capulets, in der sie mit 16 Jahren zum vollwertigen Vampir werden soll. Allerdings will sie kein Vampir werden und Blut trinken müssen, anderen Menschen Gewalt antun. Als sie sich Hals über Kopf in den jungen Romeo verliebt, der den Vampirjägern der Montagues angehört, ist sie sich sicher, kein Vampir werden zu wollen und beschließt alles auf eine riskante Karte zu setzten. Die weltbekannte Tragödie von Shakespeare einmal anders, mit Vampiren und Biss …
Meinung:
Bei “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” handelt es sich um eine “Romeo und Julia” Adaption von Shakespeare. Der Roman hält sich an die wichtigsten Gegebenheiten und Charaktere der Tragödie und unterscheidet sich im wesentlichen nur durch den Fantasyanteil, denn hier sind die verfeindeten Familien einmal Vampire und einmal Vampirjäger. Das es sich um eine veränderte Variante von “Romeo und Julia” handelt, ist im Laufe der Geschichte sehr wichtig zu wissen, damit man auch die rasche Szenenfolge und die etwas altbackene Handlung nachvollziehen kann.
Im Grunde geht es wie bei der Tragödie von Shakespeare um die Liebe zwischen Julia und Romeo, deren Familien miteinander verfeindet sind. Allerdings gehört Julia einer mächtige Vampirfamilie, den Capulets an. Die Gegenspieler sind die Montagues und in diesem Fall brutale Vampirjäger. Dennoch verlieben sich beide Hauptcharaktere unsterblich ineinander, auch wenn ihnen bewusst ist, dass sie ihre Liebe streng geheim halten müssen. Die weiteren Szenen sind gut aus der originalen Tragödie übernommen worden, ebenso wie die weiteren Charaktere Mercutio, Benvolio, Tybalt etc. … Natürlich wurde die Geschichte stark minimiert, sodass einige Charaktere aus dem Drama fehlen, was aber nicht stört. Ansonsten ist ein weiterer Unterschied der Ort, da “Julia und Romeo” im Original ja in Italien spielt, diese Vampivariante jedoch in Transsilvanien abläuft, was natürlich beim Thema Vampir ungemein gruseliger wirkt, aber auch recht klischeehaft.
Mit Klischees ist die Geschichte auch durchweg gespickt. Die originale Handlung ist schon Drama und Schnulz pur und erscheint in der heutigen Zeit ziemlich altertümlich, aber die dazu geschriebenen Klischees über Vampire sind dann doch etwas zu viel. Vampire schweben, ihnen wachsen bei der Verwandlung Krallen, ihre Augen sind natürlich blutrot. Dazu kommen weitere Aspekte, wie das Vampire magische Kräfte haben können, gegen Weihwasser und Kreuze allergisch reagieren und sie ihr Spiegelbild nicht mehr sehen können. Alles in allem benutzt die Autorin wirklich jedes Vampirklischee, um die magere Story zu füllen.
Mit magerer Story meine ich natürlich, dass die Geschichte kaum etwas neues bietet. “Romeo und Julia” kennen wohl die meisten und die Autorin übernimmt einfach ungemein viel, aber nicht unbedingt positiv. Auch dieses “Wer da?” taucht immer wieder auf, erinnert an die original Laute, die jedoch in diesem moderneren Roman ziemlich unpassend wirken. Meiner Meinung nach hätte man mehr aus der Geschichte rausholen können, denn das Buch ist gerade einmal 240 Seiten stark. Die Geschichte bleibt sehr oberflächig, schnell und vereinfacht, dass man dann auch lieber gleich zum Originalen greifen kann.
Das Ende ist dann irgendwie auch der einzige Punkt, der wirklich anders ist in der Adaption. Aber ob ich das Ende gut finde? Wohl weniger, denn “Romeo und Julia” ist nicht umsonst eine weltbekannte Tragödie und wenn man schon großräumig abschreibt, sollte man dies vielleicht bis zum Schluss beibehalten, denn ein Happy Enderscheint mir hier von der Autorin als viel zu einfach gewählt. Man möchte anscheinend, dass dieses Buch mit dem Mainstream Vampirbüchern mithalten kann und zerstückelt somit skrupellos eine wundervolle Tragödie, zu einer Happy End Lovestory von vielen.
Ganz schlimm finde ich dann auch, dass der eigentlich Knackpunkt der Tragödie hier total abhanden kommt. Zwar ist “Romeo und Julia” im Original tragisch und auch traurig, aber letztendlich finden beide verfeindeten Familien dadurch wieder zusammen und schließen Frieden. Dieser überaus wichtige Punkt wird total beiseite geschoben, für ein schnulziges und übertriebenes Happy End. Deshalb auch nur 1 Stern, für eine nette Idee, aber mangelnder Umsetzung.
Der Schreibstil ist einfach. Der Plot hält sich strikt an die originale Tragödie und die Autorin übernimmt immer wieder originale Wortlaute wie “Wer da?”. Das hat mir weniger gefallen. Vielleicht hätte man hier lieber noch etwas mehr Wert auf eigene Arbeit legen sollen, denn “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” ist nicht mehr, als eine abgeschriebene und ummodellierte Fassung. Wirklich gelungenen ist die Romanvariante dann auch nicht, da die ansonsten so starken Dialoge ihre Wirkung verlieren. Das einzig gute fand ich, waren die Perspektivenwechsel zwischen Julia und Romeo von Kapitel zu Kapitel.
Das Cover ist kitschig, passt aber. Mich hat es weniger angesprochen. Durch die zwei ineinander verschlungenen Personen, bekommt der Leser aber immerhin einen guten Endruck von dem Buch, da die Geschichte allgemein abgeschrieben, verändert und verkitscht wurde. Der englische Titel lautet übrigens “Romeo & Juliet & Vampires”, was noch schlimmer ist, als das deutsche “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen”.
Fazit:
Muss man lesen? Meiner Meinung nach weniger. Wieso? Ganz einfach, die Autorin hat zu wenig eigenes mit eingebracht. “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” ist eigentlich nur eine einfach abgeschriebene Fassung von “Romeo und Julia” in Romanformat, deren Charaktere zu Vampiren oder Vampirjägern mutieren, um auf der Welle des Mainstreamerfolgs mitreiten zu können. Schade, ich hätte eindeutig mehr erwartet.
Inhalt:
“Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” handelt von Romeo und Julia, die einander lieben, obwohl sie verfeindeten Familien angehören. Julia gehört hier zu der Vampirfamilie der Capulets, in der sie mit 16 Jahren zum vollwertigen Vampir werden soll. Allerdings will sie kein Vampir werden und Blut trinken müssen, anderen Menschen Gewalt antun. Als sie sich Hals über Kopf in den jungen Romeo verliebt, der den Vampirjägern der Montagues angehört, ist sie sich sicher, kein Vampir werden zu wollen und beschließt alles auf eine riskante Karte zu setzten. Die weltbekannte Tragödie von Shakespeare einmal anders, mit Vampiren und Biss …
Meinung:
Bei “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” handelt es sich um eine “Romeo und Julia” Adaption von Shakespeare. Der Roman hält sich an die wichtigsten Gegebenheiten und Charaktere der Tragödie und unterscheidet sich im wesentlichen nur durch den Fantasyanteil, denn hier sind die verfeindeten Familien einmal Vampire und einmal Vampirjäger. Das es sich um eine veränderte Variante von “Romeo und Julia” handelt, ist im Laufe der Geschichte sehr wichtig zu wissen, damit man auch die rasche Szenenfolge und die etwas altbackene Handlung nachvollziehen kann.
Im Grunde geht es wie bei der Tragödie von Shakespeare um die Liebe zwischen Julia und Romeo, deren Familien miteinander verfeindet sind. Allerdings gehört Julia einer mächtige Vampirfamilie, den Capulets an. Die Gegenspieler sind die Montagues und in diesem Fall brutale Vampirjäger. Dennoch verlieben sich beide Hauptcharaktere unsterblich ineinander, auch wenn ihnen bewusst ist, dass sie ihre Liebe streng geheim halten müssen. Die weiteren Szenen sind gut aus der originalen Tragödie übernommen worden, ebenso wie die weiteren Charaktere Mercutio, Benvolio, Tybalt etc. … Natürlich wurde die Geschichte stark minimiert, sodass einige Charaktere aus dem Drama fehlen, was aber nicht stört. Ansonsten ist ein weiterer Unterschied der Ort, da “Julia und Romeo” im Original ja in Italien spielt, diese Vampivariante jedoch in Transsilvanien abläuft, was natürlich beim Thema Vampir ungemein gruseliger wirkt, aber auch recht klischeehaft.
Mit Klischees ist die Geschichte auch durchweg gespickt. Die originale Handlung ist schon Drama und Schnulz pur und erscheint in der heutigen Zeit ziemlich altertümlich, aber die dazu geschriebenen Klischees über Vampire sind dann doch etwas zu viel. Vampire schweben, ihnen wachsen bei der Verwandlung Krallen, ihre Augen sind natürlich blutrot. Dazu kommen weitere Aspekte, wie das Vampire magische Kräfte haben können, gegen Weihwasser und Kreuze allergisch reagieren und sie ihr Spiegelbild nicht mehr sehen können. Alles in allem benutzt die Autorin wirklich jedes Vampirklischee, um die magere Story zu füllen.
Mit magerer Story meine ich natürlich, dass die Geschichte kaum etwas neues bietet. “Romeo und Julia” kennen wohl die meisten und die Autorin übernimmt einfach ungemein viel, aber nicht unbedingt positiv. Auch dieses “Wer da?” taucht immer wieder auf, erinnert an die original Laute, die jedoch in diesem moderneren Roman ziemlich unpassend wirken. Meiner Meinung nach hätte man mehr aus der Geschichte rausholen können, denn das Buch ist gerade einmal 240 Seiten stark. Die Geschichte bleibt sehr oberflächig, schnell und vereinfacht, dass man dann auch lieber gleich zum Originalen greifen kann.
Das Ende ist dann irgendwie auch der einzige Punkt, der wirklich anders ist in der Adaption. Aber ob ich das Ende gut finde? Wohl weniger, denn “Romeo und Julia” ist nicht umsonst eine weltbekannte Tragödie und wenn man schon großräumig abschreibt, sollte man dies vielleicht bis zum Schluss beibehalten, denn ein Happy Enderscheint mir hier von der Autorin als viel zu einfach gewählt. Man möchte anscheinend, dass dieses Buch mit dem Mainstream Vampirbüchern mithalten kann und zerstückelt somit skrupellos eine wundervolle Tragödie, zu einer Happy End Lovestory von vielen.
Ganz schlimm finde ich dann auch, dass der eigentlich Knackpunkt der Tragödie hier total abhanden kommt. Zwar ist “Romeo und Julia” im Original tragisch und auch traurig, aber letztendlich finden beide verfeindeten Familien dadurch wieder zusammen und schließen Frieden. Dieser überaus wichtige Punkt wird total beiseite geschoben, für ein schnulziges und übertriebenes Happy End. Deshalb auch nur 1 Stern, für eine nette Idee, aber mangelnder Umsetzung.
Der Schreibstil ist einfach. Der Plot hält sich strikt an die originale Tragödie und die Autorin übernimmt immer wieder originale Wortlaute wie “Wer da?”. Das hat mir weniger gefallen. Vielleicht hätte man hier lieber noch etwas mehr Wert auf eigene Arbeit legen sollen, denn “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” ist nicht mehr, als eine abgeschriebene und ummodellierte Fassung. Wirklich gelungenen ist die Romanvariante dann auch nicht, da die ansonsten so starken Dialoge ihre Wirkung verlieren. Das einzig gute fand ich, waren die Perspektivenwechsel zwischen Julia und Romeo von Kapitel zu Kapitel.
Das Cover ist kitschig, passt aber. Mich hat es weniger angesprochen. Durch die zwei ineinander verschlungenen Personen, bekommt der Leser aber immerhin einen guten Endruck von dem Buch, da die Geschichte allgemein abgeschrieben, verändert und verkitscht wurde. Der englische Titel lautet übrigens “Romeo & Juliet & Vampires”, was noch schlimmer ist, als das deutsche “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen”.
Fazit:
Muss man lesen? Meiner Meinung nach weniger. Wieso? Ganz einfach, die Autorin hat zu wenig eigenes mit eingebracht. “Dein Blut auf meinen Lippen” ist eigentlich nur eine einfach abgeschriebene Fassung von “Romeo und Julia” in Romanformat, deren Charaktere zu Vampiren oder Vampirjägern mutieren, um auf der Welle des Mainstreamerfolgs mitreiten zu können. Schade, ich hätte eindeutig mehr erwartet.
November 6, 2019
I’m reading this book slow since I have to revise.
It’s one thing to read about the original play because it’s supposed to be a play, overly dramatic too. It’s another thing to read it as a novel where the characters are given more depth. And from what I read, a few characters have made themselves despicable to me when they weren’t in the play.
I’ve just started reading and I already like Juliet for having her own mind. I hate Romeo because he is living proof that love makes fools of us all. He is a foolhardy, selfish idiot. He is willing to endanger his friends just to see if he can woo Rosaline, which is already improbable because she makes her disinterest clear. An utter idiot who does not think of the dangers and consequences. The friar is not much better. Doesn’t he think Romeo is shallow and hasty to want to marry a girl he just met the day before, after pining after her cousin for weeks?
Then there are some character twists.
Lady Capulet actually tries to help her daughter and mourns for her. Lord Capulet only sees his daughter as a tool and doesn’t love her. I actually feel sorry for the Lady.
Count Paris has gone from the respectable and handsome cousin to a lecherous and ugly vampire ambassador.
In exchange for a happy ending for the couple, there will be no settled feud between families.
It’s one thing to read about the original play because it’s supposed to be a play, overly dramatic too. It’s another thing to read it as a novel where the characters are given more depth. And from what I read, a few characters have made themselves despicable to me when they weren’t in the play.
I’ve just started reading and I already like Juliet for having her own mind. I hate Romeo because he is living proof that love makes fools of us all. He is a foolhardy, selfish idiot. He is willing to endanger his friends just to see if he can woo Rosaline, which is already improbable because she makes her disinterest clear. An utter idiot who does not think of the dangers and consequences. The friar is not much better. Doesn’t he think Romeo is shallow and hasty to want to marry a girl he just met the day before, after pining after her cousin for weeks?
Then there are some character twists.
Lady Capulet actually tries to help her daughter and mourns for her. Lord Capulet only sees his daughter as a tool and doesn’t love her. I actually feel sorry for the Lady.
Count Paris has gone from the respectable and handsome cousin to a lecherous and ugly vampire ambassador.
In exchange for a happy ending for the couple, there will be no settled feud between families.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 29, 2020
Setting aside my normal criticism for R&J (mostly that they fell in love at first sight, even with R already in love with her cousin??) I really do like the original play.
I hadn’t ever considered adding vampires, and at first the notion sounds off and cheesy. Yet Gabel has a way of interweaving the classic play and old vampire lore (Vlad the Impaler) together seamlessly. The time period does lend itself to gothic themes, and the stakes of R&J were high already.
Genuinely love Shakespeare adaptations, and vampires are my personal favorite paranormal creatures, so this story really hit.
**I also always hated the ending of the play, not the tragedy just how close R was to getting J to wake up. I know it was that way to raise the stakes/heighten the grief&tragedy, but I still hated it, so I’m glad Gabel took her own creative liberties at the end**
I hadn’t ever considered adding vampires, and at first the notion sounds off and cheesy. Yet Gabel has a way of interweaving the classic play and old vampire lore (Vlad the Impaler) together seamlessly. The time period does lend itself to gothic themes, and the stakes of R&J were high already.
Genuinely love Shakespeare adaptations, and vampires are my personal favorite paranormal creatures, so this story really hit.
**I also always hated the ending of the play, not the tragedy just how close R was to getting J to wake up. I know it was that way to raise the stakes/heighten the grief&tragedy, but I still hated it, so I’m glad Gabel took her own creative liberties at the end**
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2022
I was actually surprised by this book. I thought maybe it would be a bit cheesy/cliché but actually it was cleverly written!
Juliet is a Capulet……and a vampire!
Romeo is a Montague……and from a family of vampire killers.
The story is pretty self explanatory but the incorporation of the vampire element is actually genious.
The story basically follows the original book with Juliet & Romeo getting married in secret. She takes the potion as per the original, Romeo finds her. Takes the poison and that’s the end right……..not in this version!
Juliet wakes to find Romeo slumped over her barely alive so she does what any vampire would do - she bites him and turns him into a vampire! Any they eternally live happily ever after. They even have a child!
Juliet is a Capulet……and a vampire!
Romeo is a Montague……and from a family of vampire killers.
The story is pretty self explanatory but the incorporation of the vampire element is actually genious.
The story basically follows the original book with Juliet & Romeo getting married in secret. She takes the potion as per the original, Romeo finds her. Takes the poison and that’s the end right……..not in this version!
Juliet wakes to find Romeo slumped over her barely alive so she does what any vampire would do - she bites him and turns him into a vampire! Any they eternally live happily ever after. They even have a child!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 4, 2023
4/5 - Romeo and Juliet but with vampires… I love R+J, and I love vamps, so this should be a win-win, right?
I like this spin of Romeo and Juliet. Capulet’s are vamps and Montague’s are vamp hunters. Most of the famous lines from the OG play are included in this retelling HOWEVER not the iconic Romeo, O Romeo, which was immensely disappointing. Also, the ending. The ending makes this not a tragic love story bound in death - that’s why I gave the book 4*
There’s no vamp gore. No actual vamp feedings. It’s straight up a condensed version of the Shakespearean play just swap humans for vampires…
I like this spin of Romeo and Juliet. Capulet’s are vamps and Montague’s are vamp hunters. Most of the famous lines from the OG play are included in this retelling HOWEVER not the iconic Romeo, O Romeo, which was immensely disappointing. Also, the ending. The ending makes this not a tragic love story bound in death - that’s why I gave the book 4*
There’s no vamp gore. No actual vamp feedings. It’s straight up a condensed version of the Shakespearean play just swap humans for vampires…
Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews