Ah. This one was not for me I am afraid.

An 'Untelling' of Romeo and Juliet this novel places Rosaline centre-stage, beginning a short while before Romeo meets Juliet and attempting to undo the history of misinterpretation that remarketed R+J as a romance by presenting to us a loaded and significant past for Romeo.

Starting with the bits I liked. I really enjoyed seeing characters from a different perspective. Rosaline's friendship with Tybalt was a highlight of the book and I really loved seeing a different side to Tybalt. I also didn't hate the general premise of the book that posited Romeo as a predator. Do I think it worked here? Absolutely not. Could it? Possibly.

And that's about everything I liked. 

The characters were really one-dimensional. Rosaline was supposed to be this spunky heroine but in fact she was totally empty aside from being sad her mum died and furious to go to a nunnery. Instead of making the most of her last days of freedom she falls instantly in love and then the rest of the book is her mooning. 

The plot was boring. I know we don't know how old Romeo is but it felt a stretch that he was 25 (it's suggested he may even be 30). To my mind, the characters are all of a similar age. It didn't feel convincing at all in this. I get the idea of a SA ring in the catholic church is topical but it didn't feel convincing and it didn't do the work to convince me.

The writing tripped along well enough but it was anachronistic, the narration and internal monologues didn't match. The random Latin words were unnecessary and distracting and didn't add anything and the borrowed lines from Romeo and Juliet were cheesy and poorly executed.

Rosaline running around in the dead of night scaling walls was farcical and the end had turned into a thriller of sorts which just felt ludicrous.

All told, it was a complete failure for me.