To be honest, I had low expectations, but I thought the romance might be cute.

"It's hard to know what to be afraid of when you don't even know what the threat is."

Okay, you need to have some suspension of disbelief when reading this story. Romiette seems really young in her first journal entry. I'm not saying there aren't light-hearted, juvenile sixteen-year-olds, but are African kings and presidents really out here visiting her mom's pan-African boutique? This was before Facebook was even popular, so how in the world would they know about the store? Also, why was Ben so gracious and friendly after Julio gave him a bloody nose? Like it would've been better if they started on the wrong foot but learned they were wrong about each other.

Nitpick: Why the heck is brown-golden skin and fried chicken in the same sentence when Julio is describing Romiette. Yes, he realizes how trifling that simile is, but why even put it in there? I have never read she was pale like mayonnaise in a story. -_-+
Julio's dad is also Liam Neeson.

A group of drunk black guys in a truck killed his high school sweetheart, so he has hated black people ever since.

Anyway, Romiette and Julio is definitely more plot-driven than character-driven with too much telling and not enough showing. I like the bite-sized chapters, but they consist of mostly dull dialogue. The most interesting character to me is Destiny, and I'm not being biased. The story is also dated with chat rooms and VCRs. I was going to laugh if they had AOL dialup internet, but alas they did not.

The part when Romiette and Julio shared their dreams about each other was really cute.

"Romiette you are my dream.

Julio, my dreams are sometimes terrifying.

I will protect you.

From my dreams?

Maybe I will be there for you in your dreams" (pg 93)

Overall, it's not really worth reading in 2019 and there wasn't enough romance.