This was cute but unfortunately rather fast paced for me. I'm sure someone who is the more intended audience (someone who doesn't read that much and is a reluctant reader) would enjoy it a lot more than I did.

I wanted to like this book I truly did but not even halfway through I had to abandon it. There was no depth of character, no true storyline and the gay bashing was just well it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I get the character was young and just finding himself but there was no real connection to him. I was very disappointed and well as I said couldn't get through the book. I was really sad about it.

This is a short story, and by short I mean 90 pages short story. It is a story about a football player who is on the peak of his career yet he finds himself restless and kinda lost. He even has friends who are fun to hang out with but inside he is just alone. They break rules, teases others and crack jokes, but Romeo feels guilty more than fun. Something does not feels right to Romeo or Rome as his friends call him.

He wants to understand more about himself. He is just not truly happy from inside and wants to be happy. Then one day, he stumbles upon a boy in a party who seemed to accelerate his heart just by being himself. The openly gay boy and Romeo ends up kissing each other but this scares Romeo. He ran away from the party even without asking for name.

Now Romeo is confused more than he was earlier about himself and more than that he wanted to kiss Julian more. He is not ready to accept himself and finds himself stuck within himself. Finally, he gathers his courage and decides to accept himself, but will others accept him or he will be just content to be himself?

At first, Romeo seemed to hide this truth below layers of lies but eventually he comes to accept himself. The threats, japes and even violence seemed easier to bear and fight against once he completely accepted himself.

The writing style is plain and simple. There was a hollowness in the story regarding emotions. The story is good and the struggle is real but still the lack of details fails to bound the readers to story. The development of characters do not seemed complete. The other characters were left without any description. The author only focussed on comimg out of Romeo. Even his background information is incomplete which drastically affects the story. The struggles of coming out and accepting yourself has been captured perfetly but would've been better if more background story about Romeo and Rosie, his parents and his school life would've been appreciated.

Note: I was given this e-arc copy by the publisher and Netgalley for my honest review and I want to thank them.

This book...sigh. It has no substance. It's very choppy and not even detailed. I get the author wanted to do a Romeo and Juliet but gay and while he had the right idea it wasn't though out. He needed more for this story to really go somewhere.

Also anyone else find the fact the author uses Rome instead of Romeo throughout the story? I found this annoying. I understand that Romeo doens't like his name so he goes by 'Rome' but at the end of the day you need to use the full character name unless it's someone calling the character by their nickname.

'Romeo for Real' is short, fast paced and easy to follow - which is perfectly fine as the book is aimed at encouraging 'reluctant readers'. It is also informative for YA readers who aren't at all knowledgeable about LGBTQ+ matters.

The authors portrayal of the various characters in this story seems fairly realistic (though too short to give all that much depth) and it's an enjoyable enough read which also raises important issues. Good enough to recommend to teens as a source material from which to launch a discussion of gender and sexuality.

However, I'm not entirely sure about the authors decision to try an make this into a 'Romeo and Juliet' rewrite. Whether the intent was to make Shakespeare more relevant and accessible for modern teenagers, or to bring the timeless quality of love between members of families/groups who are enemies/rivals to the problems of LGBTQ+ teens, I don't know.......but whatever was intended, I'm really not convinced that it is pulled off effectively and I can't say that I feel it was either necessary or a good idea. Perhaps 'translating' the basic premise of the original play into more modern terms would help a group of teens labelled reluctant readers to grasp what's going on in the Shakespeare - but adding this text (albeit short) into a reading list only increases the load and could, frankly, be confusing anyway. If the entire point is to encourage teens to read, because they struggle or lack interest, what is gained by adding in parallel details from a Shakespearian work that they may well not know or understand?

I wanted to like this, but the characters all seemed pretty flat. There isn't enough time spent on character development, and there certainly isn't enough time spent on relationship development. I get that Romeo and Julian's kissing without saying more than a few words to each other is based on Romeo and Juliet, but it just reads as being too ridiculous. And they don't even have a conversation before they're kissing again!

I was also expecting the story to end in tragedy, which would have been disappointing in its own way. But the ending here is too perfect to be at all believable.

I was excited to start reading this but that all quickly turned to disappointment as I discovered how poorly executed this story was, as it progressed. This is not a good example of a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet-- it mostly just borrows a lot of the character names and very few of the plot points. Romeo and Julian are troubled but likable characters, even if they are full of self doubt and find an unexplained attraction for one another-- neither of which is fully explored.

The author chose to use character names from the 'source material' -- at times, randomly and often without the recognizable character traits of the original. For instance, Romeo's friend Ben is extremely homophobic and ends up being responsible for a severe gay-bashing-- where Benvolio (from Shakespeare) attempted to be the peacemaker. I got to the point where every recognizable name made me cringe and I was distracted, trying to figure out the connection to the original.

As a YA novel, this does not set up good role models for coming of age LGBTQ youth. It excuses behaviors (unexplained) and the characters do not grow or even seek self-understanding. I'm not naive and don't expect perfect characters-- flawed characters are always more interesting. BUT there needs to be some sense of growth and connection.

If the author had not used the R & J character names-- this might have been a little more successful. It still would lack the accountability of some of the attitudes and actions displayed by the main players. The author further complicates the story with hints at other story lines and issues that he does not begin to explore effectively (cross-dressing, transgender), resulting in distraction rather than an enhancement or additional layers to the plot.

There were so many directions the author could have gone with this premise/adaptation-- successfully.... instead it just falls as an amateurish attempt at being clever. My advice to the author would be to pull this book from publication, re-examine and either rename the characters or better tie the events to the original story source-- and above all, expand the story to adequately explore the many themes he had introduced.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

So first off, get it out of your head that this is a Romeo and Juliet retelling. The only things present are their names and the somewhat familiarity of loving someone you think you can't be with.

Book-wise, it's like a 2.5 because I personally feel like you can't have all of that negativity without adding some depth and positivity to the characters getting bashed. Like, I'd seriously need more than just happy LGBT members cheering on Rome for what he's discovering of himself. It's good for him, totally, but when you take everything into account, it wasn't enough. Then there's the way it was written. Rome sounds checked out when the story's being told; you're given some conversations, but a lot of other interactions are shortened via narration, and I wouldn't say it was lazy, but more like it just didn't match the personal feel that Rome emitted when it came to intense moments.

So... I was going to rate this book two stars because Romeo didn't really feel present in his own book. The homophobia didn't bother me, but the lack of good things to combat all that nastiness did. If Rome's surrounded by all this hatred and ignorant thinking, I'd have thought that the book would get just as much, if not more, of all the good things to being part of the LGBT community. Like Rosie, or Guyna, or Julian's friends and family. It just didn't seem like this was balanced well, which then effected the way I felt about the characters. Rome was pretty much a doormat the first half of the book. I think that if Rome's thoughts and feelings had been "vocalized" in the writing a lot more, I wouldn't have had a problem with his silence. I can totally understand Rome's reluctance to challenging the opinions of his loved ones. These are people he's relied on his whole life, who have seen him through really troubled times. I didn't fault him at all for not wanting to get into fights with them, and sometimes it's just easier to not start what you know will just result in a headache. It wasn't his lack of challenging them that bothered me, so much as his 'head in the cloud' moments. He just felt a little disconnected for me.

And yet despite the slight irritant, I still liked the thought of what this author was doing with Rome and Julian's POV books. Rome really stood on his own when he finally snapped. The ending was a little abrupt when, again, you compare it to the previous climax and tone of the last chapter, but they all had their good moments.

Didn’t particularly enjoy this title. Too many cliches and generalizations and overall just not pleasant to read.

Normally I shelve books under LGBTQIA+ if they fit that. This one, despite having gay characters did not. At least not in my books.

The homophobia within this novel had me gritting my teeth, and it was just such a cop out to have the main character go along with it because of how he was raised, with little to no substance supporting it.

I finished this, but just barely. It was too short, too gross to be frank, and downright insulting to an audience that at this point in time deserves a whole lot better. Seriously.

I was intrigued with this book because I love Romeo and Juliet’s story. Then again who doesn’t? When I noticed that it was going to be a LGBTQ+ book I was even more interested in reading it. Buuuuut.

I didn’t really connect with this book. I felt like something was lacking. I didn’t get the chemistry that they are supposed to have. I felt like Romeo and Julian’s relationship went a little to fast imo.

I’m giving this book 1.5/5 stars

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This was...not a good book. It was light on plot, light on character development, and heavy on instant-love. It felt more like a "here's a half-formed story I'm using to teach you about LGBTQ terminology" than like an actual novel. It also was written in a cringe-y, overly enthusiastic way. And there were some really transphobic vibes despite being a seemingly progressive novel. I respect what the author was trying to do here, but this just really, really didn't work for me.

This had great intentions, but poor execution. I wish the characters had been more fleshed out and had been given more time to blossom and develop. (My review is the same for the partner novel, Just Julian.)

A modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet with two teenage males. I enjoyed it but felt it was a little too short and therefore a little too fast paced. I didn’t really think that there was enough emotional development for the characters to move so quickly (Chapter 18 especially; there was an acknowledgment that it felt too soon but it came off a bit contrived). I liked the way the author used the names and concepts from the original Romeo & Juliet (i.e. “cousin Ty” -> Tybalt). I really wish it was longer so that the characters and plot could have been fleshed out more, because I feel like they have something here but it needs to be expanded upon.