Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Review: Romeo Redeemed

ABOUT THE BOOK:


Author: Stacey Jay

All will be revealed for fans who have breathlessly awaited the sizzling sequel to Juliet Immortal. This time Romeo takes center stage and gets one chance, and one chance only, to redeem himself.

Cursed to live out eternity in his rotted corpse, Romeo, known for his ruthless, cutthroat ways, is given the chance to redeem himself by traveling back in time to save the life of Ariel Dragland. Unbeknownst to her, Ariel is important to both the evil Mercenaries and the love-promoting Ambassadors and holds the fate of the world in her hands. Romeo must win her heart and make her believe in love, turning her away from her darker potential before his work is discovered by the Mercenaries. While his seduction begins as yet another lie, it soon becomes his only truth. Romeo vows to protect Ariel from harm, and do whatever it takes to win her heart and soul. But when Ariel is led to believe his love is a deception, she becomes vulnerable to Mercenary manipulation, and her own inner darkness may ultimately rip them apart.



BOOK REVIEW:

Stacey Jay is one of my favorite authors, so don't go around yelling, "OMG! Hater in da hawz!" or else, I will punch you. Hard. Ok? So violence aside, I REALLY HATE this book. I felt betrayed and somehow tricked!

To give you a better understanding, this is what it felt like:


So you were happily minding your own business when an ice cream truck stopped in front of your house. This truck smelled like marshmallows and chocolates. It was all white but oh-it's-so-shiny and you could see your reflection in it! There's cheerful music playing in the background. And then all the children in the neighborhood flocked around the said truck.

One kid came out of the mob holding a very delicious-looking cookies and cream. She looked so delighted, you couldn't help yourself from asking to taste it! So she let you and the ice cream tasted like lettuce! Yuck! Maybe it just gone bad. So you went ahead and got yourself your own cookies and cream. Holding the cone, you were giddy with excitement and just couldn't wait to eat it. So you licked it and.. wait. "This isn't right", you thought. And you licked it again and again until you felt like throwing up! What the heck?!


It tasted like COUGH SYRUP.


COUGH. SYRUP.

"Is this a trick? Am I getting punk'd?", you asked. But you knew deep inside, that you just got trolled. And worst, you couldn't do anything about it even if you tried to throw it all up.


So yeah. That's what happened to me.


If you haven't read Juliet Immortal yet, you would be putting your sanity in danger if you start with Romeo Redeemed. You can read my review of Juliet Immortal here.


The story started with Romeo betraying Juliet, his soulmate, the year was 1304. After a series of indecisions and self-hate, we move on to the present day where he was rightfully punished for his crimes. Okay okay, we already knew that from the last book, right? What else is new?

Juliet's nurse, the Ambassador who started this mess, gave Romeo a chance to redeem himself. His mission: to have Ariel fall in love with him within 3 days. If he successfully fulfilled his mission, he will become an Ambassador, otherwise, his soul will go back to his rotting corpse. You can probably guess where this is going...

THE CHARACTERS:

ROMEO: He is a chronic liar and a seven-hundred-year-old pervert. SEVEN HUNDRED. I repeat, seven freaking hundred. But that's okay 'cause he died when he was sixteen, therefore, he never aged. Umm, yeah, I'm not buying that, sorry. I didn't find him romantic at all. I think he's super creepy and disgusting. All he thinks about is SEX, because people, Romeo is sexually-deprived since 1304, so it's totally normal for him to prey on an innocent teenager. Um, NO.

I don't know what kind of message Jay is sending out to her readers, but I didn't find it to be a positive one.

ARIEL: She is filled with self-pity from head to toe. And I think that she's very, very disturbed. I thought that I was gonna like her, but she was just a complete mess. Her personality made a 360 degree turn after she realized that she loved Romeo. Like it was some kind of REVELATION or something. Ariel's head is full of crap like: "Listening to Romeo sing is a full body experience." Wait... what?!

Her character is spineless and stupid. She also needs to attend some anger-management class before she turns into a psycho killer, just sayin'.


GEMMA: Again, one of the characters that I had big problems with. It is NEVER okay to say shit things about your parents to other people, no matter how much you hate them. So what if she's a teenager? Age is not an excuse for ungratefulness. I was never like that when I was her age. It's a little ironic how the theme of this novel is about LOVE, like IN YOUR FACE LOVE. So apparently, the only kind of love in the world is Romantic Lust or Love, but it doesn't matter, because there really is no difference.

Gemma is an ungrateful little... eh bird... and she is also the world's worst best friend. Yet, despite all that, she gets to be with her soulmate? NO. I cannot accept that. So what is the point of this book again?


JULIET: Oh boy! Juliet, Juliet, we meet again. In Romeo Redeemed, we get snippets of Juliet's situation with the Mercenary. And speaking of the intermezzo, WHAT THE FUDGE?! I read this novel so I can get some answers from the previous one. I didn't have any high expectations so that's not the problem. But seriously, what the fudge? The ending of Juliet Immortal and the Intermezzos of Romeo Redeemed completely contradicts each other. Are you kidding me? Stacey Jay, do you really expect me to gobble that shit up? NO. JUST EFFIN' NO.

I. Don't. Get. It.




THE PLOT: It sucked. Alternate reality was never really explained well. So if Ariel died in the first reality and the other one is still alive, then does mean that there is more than one soul of Ariel? If that's the case, then what happened to the alternate souls of Romeo and Juliet? I didn't get it. And if the Ambassadors are the representatives of anything "Good and Light", then why are they willing to murder an innocent person? Why?! How come the Mercenaries are so loserish? Shouldn't they be, I don't know, overflowing with evil?



WHAT THE FUDGE?! What is the point of this novel?

RATING:


I received an ARC of "Romeo Redeemed" by Stacey Jay via NetGalley -- to be published by Random House Children's Books on October 09, 2012.

3 comments:

  1. oh my gosh thank you for this review! I almost requested this in Net Galley too! :O

    and haha love Stitch there!

    -Mia @
    Bookwormmia.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome, Mia! Yeah, Stitch is so cute... for a blue, fluffy alien. :)

      Delete
  2. Wow, what an amazing follow up. Seriously if you have not started this series yet you must go now and read Dead on the Delta! These 2 books will totally suck you in. I love when I can say the second book is as awesome if not more awesome then the first.

    ReplyDelete