I haven't gone through every path yet, but I've gone through quite a few. Mostly as Juliet (except when, as Juliet, I pretended to be Romeo trying to seduce Juliet, that is me, but then somehow became Romeo, now me, trying to seduce Juliet, now no longer me.) so I feel safe reviewing this a bit.

This is basically the best kind of fun to have with your friends--especially book lovers, English majors or Shakespeare lovers. North has an irreverent tone that, while it doesn't always work completely well with the actual jargon/lines from Shakespeare, does make it fun to read and run through multiple times in one sitting.

As a Choose Your Own Adventure book sometimes the paths seem utterly contrived...but North admits this will happen bc come on he can't account for EVERY variable as genuine experience.
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Your name is Juliet (or Romeo). You live in Old-Timey Verona, where we've set our scene, and are either too milquetoast to tell your parents no or in love with the idea of being in love, thus setting into motion a tale of star-crossed lovers. Or not. I mean Juliet, if you just say 'yes' to your mother you can go and marry boring old Paul Rudd...I mean Paris and Romeo you have a chance to go and get that Rosalind girl you spend most of your opening pining after for some reason.

Or Juliet you can run off and be a pirate! Romeo you can...I have no idea what you can do otherwise, I refused to follow his path because omg he is so annoying. Juliet gets choices like "run far far away from everything for adventures" while Romeo gets "do you go chat up the girl?".

Of course you could be that person who follows the story as Shakespeare wrote it (North helpfully has little hearts next to the choices that will lead you down that tragic angsty path). Personally I vote you say "no" as soon as you to your Mother, run away, chat up some guy at a bar, and somehow make your fortune on the high seas instead. (can you tell I love the pirate ending for Juliet?).

North plays fast and loose with the time period, the play, the characters, the character motivations, Shakespeare's intentions and pretty much everything else you can think of for him to play fast and loose with. Even if you follow the "canon" path for R&J, North is at pains to be like "are you really sure that's a great idea? Here's a better one!" to tempt you towards a more satisfying ending. Its actually more of a chore to ignore his glib asides, irreverent commentary and anachronistic observations to complete the "canon" version then it is to go with the flow towards a different ending.

Each segment is short enough that if you want to play this as a party game (which I heartily recommend) you can, passing the book around to each person as choices are made. Each ending's illustration is alternately absurd (a muscle-bound, fiercely grinning Juliet swinging a sword while in a dress!) or sweet (Juliet and a beau living in martial bliss far away from the idiots in Verona), breaking up the text. I did flounder at first with the page set-up however; this isn't traditionally numbered. As some snippets are barely a line or more then a page, you have to be careful when moving from choice to choice to make sure you are at the BEGINNING of that choice (sometimes on the previous page).

Overall this was a fun, inventive way to spend my time. Like the OMG Shakespeare books I think they may also be a good way to get reluctant readers into the classics. Look, even though I love Twelfth Night and Midsummer's Night Dream and Macbeth - they are NOT easy to get through. Especially if you go for the really old text and not the slightly updated so at least they don't have weird punctuation and apostrophes everywhere text. For reluctant readers, or readers who struggle with reading due to attention span or not reading English fluently (for whatever reason), books like this can help bridge that gap.

North does a fine job of presenting the actual text (especially if you follow the canon path), while making it accessible to everyone and giving context. Paired with a unit on Shakespeare in Modern Times or some such thing, I think this could be a fine teaching tool.

Or do like me, break out the vodka (or rum) and have a ridiculously fun time with your friends. Either way, this is a winner of a book. ( )

Do yourselves a favor and keep playing this untill you discover the secret character, it makes the experience even better!

I loved North's previous book so much that this one almost crumbled under the weight of my expectations. The two are so similar that it felt as if there weren't that many new ideas in it. Don't get me wrong, it's still amazing, witty, funny, charming, feminist and exciting. But it doesn't take your breath away like the first one did. Maybe it's because I read them fairly close to one another. If I'd waited, let's say, a year after reading To be or not to be, I might have loved Julied and/or Romeno just as much. But some of the glamour was lost. It's still a great book though. ( )

I first heard about this book on the All the Books podcast. I was intrigued so I immediately put it on reserve at my local library.

This book is fantastic! Funny, clever, delightful, and at times had me laughing out loud.

I started the book by choosing to be Juliet. I played through a few of the options, played around with Romeo, and even ended up being Juliet's nurse!

I also liked that if you wanted to know (more or less) how the actual play turned out, you could do that as well!

So, if you've had the itch for a grown-up version of Choose Your Own Adventure, this will satisfy that itch! ( )

This book is hilarious. I'll revisit it in the future. ( )

fiction. kinda gimmicky, but it kinda works too. ( )