Rowena’s review of When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle.
Main Character: Rosaline
Love Interest: Len (Highlight to see)
Series: None
Author: Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads
Rosaline knows that she and Rob are destined to be together. Rose has been waiting for years for Rob to kiss her — and when he finally does, it’s perfect. But then Juliet moves back to town. Juliet, who used to be Rose’s best friend. Juliet, who now inexplicably hates her. Juliet, who is gorgeous, vindictive, and a little bit crazy . . . and who has set her sights on Rob. He doesn’t even stand a chance.
Rose is devastated over losing Rob to Juliet. This is not how the story was supposed to go. And when rumors start swirling about Juliet’s instability, her neediness, and her threats of suicide, Rose starts to fear not only for Rob’s heart, but also for his life. Because Shakespeare may have gotten the story wrong, but we all still know how it ends.
I was really excited to read this book because this was the book that my newly formed book club voted on reading for our first book club meeting. The whole, other side of Romeo and Juliet storyline seemed to be a popular draw for my book club members (my two friends in real life, haha) so I’m really excited to discuss the book with my friends.
Anyway, this book took me by surprise because I was expecting to hate Rob and love the new guy but a part of me was still rooting for Rob toward the end, even though by then I should have been total Team Other Guy. I should have hated Rob for what he did to Roseline and I should have hated him for waiting so long to talk to Roseline after he hooked up with Juliet but for some reason, I still liked him. I know, I’m weird. I know this.
One of the things that I really like about reading YA is the friendships that I read about. The friendship between Rose, Charlie and Olivia made me want to punch someone. You guys know Rose better than anyone at school (aside from the love interest) and you just let Rob bring Juliet a week after he dumped her? She’s hurting from everything and you just let her come to your beach house and hang out with you guys, like she didn’t just steal her man? You just expect Rose to be okay with it, to roll with it like she’s not heartbroken? Get the freak out of here with that. You don’t do that to your best friend. You don’t let her in the freaking door, let alone Rob. You make sure that your boyfriend knows that Rob and his no-good, boyfriend stealing girlfriend stay far away from your best friend until you know that she’s over it. You don’t rub salt in her wounds and that’s exactly what they did when they let Rob and Juliet come and stay at the party.
That pissed me right off.
Charlie and her bossiness got on my hot damn nerves and Olivia was a character that had some potential of being a pretty good character but she kind of fell flat. I thought I would enjoy her character more when she first came onto the scene but as the story progressed, her character just kind of fell off my radar.
The story kind of bumped along, keeping me interested and then about half way through, it got to be hard to get through. Too many people were pissing me off (Rose included) that I had to read this book in batches. I could only read so many pages before my blood pressure would rise and I’d have to put it down.
Rose was an interesting character. She was a normal teenager who was betrayed by her best friend and had a hard time getting over it. Watching her come into her own was great but the people that should have had her back, did her dirty in the book and made me hate them so much. Even when things got better, I didn’t trust them and I didn’t care for them so because of that, I enjoyed this book less and less. After all was said and done, my heart hurt for Rob and for Rose and I was glad that I read it but I still hadn’t forgiven the other people in her life.
I thought she had a good support system in her family so that was something but the other people she surrounded herself with left a lot to be desired. Even though everything comes out about Juliet, I still hated that bitch. Even though Rob was an asshole to Rose, I didn’t hate him and I had no idea why. Because he was cute? I sincerely hope not but as much as I was supposed to hate him, I didn’t.
Overall, the book is one of those books that leaves much to discuss and I’m looking forward to discussing this book next week with my book club. There are a lot of things that are good about this book but a lot of things that I didn’t like too but overall, it’s a C read.
..and that’s your scoop!
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Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com
