The Juliet Spell by Douglas Rees

Title/Author: The Juliet Spell by Douglas Rees
Publisher/Date published: Harlequin Teen, September 27th 2011
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley

Goodreads summary: "I wanted the role of Juliet more than anything. I studied hard. I gave a great reading for it — even with Bobby checking me out the whole time. I deserved the part.
I didn't get it. So I decided to level the playing field, though I actually might have leveled the whole play. You see, since there aren't any Success in Getting to Be Juliet in Your High School Play spells, I thought I'd cast the next best — a Fame spell. Good idea, right?
Yeah. Instead of bringing me a little fame, it brought me someone a little famous. Shakespeare. Well, Edmund Shakespeare. William's younger brother.
Good thing he's sweet and enthusiastic about helping me with the play... and — ahem — maybe a little bit hot. But he's from the past. Way past. Cars amaze him — cars! And cell phones? Ugh.
Still, there's something about him that's making my eyes go star-crossed..."

Okay, so I'd heard some less than stellar things about this book before I started it. And it ended up surprising me, because I really liked it. Well, the first part that is. About 50 pages before the end I went WTF???

I mean, the story was funny and cute and I liked Edmund, even though he was basically just a horny teenage boy. And though Miranda doesn't always have her priorities straight, I liked her as a character as well. She's extremely passionate about acting and well, I like a character who works to achieve his or her dream.

So we were doing good, we had the main character making goo-goo eyes at the horny teenage boy, while conveniently not seeing the other, much nicer, non-medieval guy who was silently pining for her. And we had a cute story. And then things got messed up. There was Miranda's dad returning out of nowhere, just being accepted back, despite being gone for years and years without any contact except paychecks. There was a whole weird almost shooting incident and the entrance of William Shakespeare himself.

And this is where the story lost its cuteness and made me go WTF?? instead.

And I'm sad that happened! Because it had such potential! But I felt the story got resolved in a way too convenient way and it all felt a bit rushed. Seriously, I was really wondering during the last 15 pages how they were going to send Edmund and William back, because they obviously had to. And then all of a sudden it all was resolved and it left me feeling slightly cheated.

All in all, this book had a really cute and fun start and I just wished it could have held on to that. The starred rating is mostly based on the first part, if the last part had been as good, it would surely have gotten a higher rating.

My rating: 3 stars