*potential spoilers for those who haven’t read it.*
By Amie Kealy
After reading the blurb for this book, I was immediately drawn in by the modern take on Romeo and Juliet and the promise of unrequited love and tragedy. And whilst the prose was well-written and the overall storyline a reinvention of what is arguably the greatest love story of all time, I couldn’t help feeling as though something was missing. Perhaps it was my error in reading something purely romance, rather than my normal choice of high fantasy, but genre aside, the on-page romance between Sebastien (our modern day Romeo) and Helen (this story’s Juliet), felt rather lacklustre.
The premise of the story is that after accidently killing his Juliet in their first lifetime, Romeo is fated to live forever, watching Juliet die and her soul being reincarnated again and again and again. And whilst I did think this could lead to interesting plot development, with the newest reincarnation of Juliet slowly being drawn to her Romeo, this revelation occurred early on in the book which felt a little anticlimactic. And from there, the plot just seemed to roll out without anything of much interest happening for the rest of the novel.
Again, this love story, rendition of day-to-day life of falling in love, is not my normal – I crave action and a love-hate relationship- so perhaps this book wasn’t for me in the first place. But I still couldn’t help but feel as though it was too easy. Sebastien spends most of the book fearing the day Helen will die, as the curse dictates, and yet they seemingly seem to overcome this without any real effort or problem solving at all.
The last hundred pages were the most action packed, and yet it felt incongruent and forced. We learn early on in the novel that Helen was previously married and is trying to file for divorce, but her ex-husband, a horrible man if there ever were one, refuses to allow her to divorce him, blaming the dissolution of their marriage entirely on Helen, and not his penchant for adultery and overall toxic behaviour. We see this toxic behaviour rear to an ugly head towards the end of the novel, where he attempts to kidnap Helen and reveal Sebastien’s secret to the world: his immortality. But this hostage-blackmail situation springs to life out of the blue and seems entirely ridiculous, made worse by the fact that Helen and Sebastien, along with a group of secret agent type characters, swindle the information from her ex-husband and come out victorious. It all just seemed rather convenient by the end of it.
As books go, I’ve definitely read worse; The Hundred Love of Juliet was an easy-to-read, a somewhat bland, but innovative take on Romeo and Juliet. I think the most redeeming quality this book had was the authors note at the end. Skye dedicated to the book to her husband in a romantic ode to the tumultuous journey they live together after learning of her husband’s illness. The authors note at the end made the book have more meaning, so that I could put aside the boredom and appreciate the life that Helen and Sebastien were trying to make from themselves, despite the odds. Even though I don’t think I’ll be reading this book again anytime soon, the sentiment of living with hope and making the most of the time we have, will definitely stay with me long after finishing the last page.