Customer Reviews

Romiette and Julio

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

For my ninth grade English class, we were assigned to read the play Romeo and Juliet. That's why, when at the library, I spotted this book and decided to read it. Compared to the original play, this book was wonderfully sweet and romantic. African-American Romiette Cappelle (called Romi) and Hispanic Julio Montague are the two heros this time. Both sixteen and juniors in high school, they meet over the internet and develop a strong relationship, that even objections from a local gang cannot deter. This book chronicles thier journey to an open relationship that overcomes racial boundaries. I recommend this book for approximately ages 9-14.

Romiette is a high school student who has lived her entire life in Cincinnati. She is black and lives with her parents, who are both successful--her father as a news reporter on television and her mother as a store owner. Romiette has never had a real boyfriend, but then she meets Julio online one afternoon.

Julio has just moved to Cincinnati from Texas, and he hates it, especially the cold weather, which he never had back home in Texas. His parents wanted to leave to get away from the gangs that were running rampant in Julio's school. Unfortunately, the gangs in Cincinnati are just as bad, especially the Devildogs, a black gang at Romiette and Julio's school.

When Romi and Julio talk online enough to realize they are going to the same school, they decide to meet for lunch one day. The two of them really hit it off; there is a definite spark between them that makes them want to spend all of their free time together. The Devildog gang doesn't like it, though. They don't want one of the pretty black girls at their school associating with a Hispanic boy. They threaten Romi and Julio and try to make them stop seeing each other. Romi and Julio don't know what they can do, but then they come up with a plan to secretly videotape the threats and bring that tape to the news, to expose this gang. When they put the plot into action, though, things go terribly wrong and Romi and Julio's lives are in danger.

I liked seeing the two families who started off not liking each other come together in order to help their children. I also liked the characters of Ben and Destiny. Both were incredibly vivid and really good friends.

This book, however, was incredibly simplistic, almost to the point of being insulting. The characters kept mentioning "Romeo and Juliette," which was distracting. If the author was going to play on the Shakespeare story, she ought to have been a bit more subtle than she was. It also seemed to me that exposing a dangerous gang on television wouldn't be the best way to ensure safety.

Book Review
Romiette and Julio
By: Sharon M. Draper

The story of Romiette And Julio is a modern version of Shakespeare's classic play "Romeo and Juliette." You might think you know what happened in the story, but you don't. The couple in the story will show you how love can over come any obstacle.
Romiette is an African-American sixteen year old girl who fall in love with Julio a Hispanic sixteen year old boy. The romance between them causes the Devil Dogs a gang who are also called the Family to separated them because of different races. Romiette and Julio love each other so much that they decided to confronted the Devil Dogs. That leads Romiette and Julio to a life and death situation.
In Shakespear's version, both character family are enemies from generation. Both families want Romeo and Juliette to separate from each other. That at the end both end up dead for love. Romiette and Julio have strong belief that their bond will keep them together. And help them over come people who are trying to force them apart. They know true love conquers all just as Romeo and Juliet did.
Romiette and Julio couldn't stand the violence that the gangs are threatening to use if they don't breakup. So to stop the Devil Dogs threat, Romiette and Julio decided to meets the gangs at London Park and solve their problems without telling the authority figures. The danger both character gone through reveal their true feeling for each other. They both will risk each other life to saved the other one.
Romiette and Julio's story is not very different from Shakespear's classic version, but it does have a different ending. Love is powerful, the decision that you choose will effect your future. In my opinion if there love, I rather wait for it to come to me than to search it for my self. This book is good, I would recommend to other people because it explain what is love between two young teens. If you aren't ready to be marry or into a relationship with someone then you shouldn't be dating yet as boyfriend and girlfriend for you be hurting your self and that someone you think you love. So before you think you love someone get to know them first and see if they have the right quality that you think he/she is right for you.

I enjoyed this book tremendously. It is written for today's young adult readers, discussing current issues in a very readable format. It shows alternating points of view, employing various techniques such as journals and internet chat room dialogue, to develop the characters and move the action along. My eighth grade students love it. They are using it as a part of literary circles centered on the theme of adolescence.

Suspense, racism, Internet intrigue, and romance; this book has it all! Romiette Cappelle, a black American girl, meets Julio Montague, a Hispanic boy from Texas, in a chat room. When they meet in person in the school cafeteria it is love at first sight. The similarity of their names with Shakespeare's heroes is not coincidence. Romiette and Julio's relationship attracts harassment by the school's Black gang, the Devildogs. They don't like the new Hispanic boy dating a "sister." Things go from bad to worse when the couple and their friends try to expose the gang's illegal activities in order to persuade gang members to leave them alone. The conclusion is far sweeter than Shakespeare's, if not a little predictable. This is a quick, enjoyable novel for today's teens.

Romiette and Julio is a great book about love, friendship, and cultural diversity. Julio moved and was having a hard time adjusting to his new school. He went on the internet and started talking in a chat room. Julio met Romiette in the chat room and began talking to her everyday. One day in school they met and became friends. However, Julio is Mexican and Romiette is African American. Many people disagreed with their relationship, including their parents, but they did not let that bother them. A gang harrasses Julio and Romiette due to their interracial relationship. A tragedy, that pulls Romiette and Julio closer, gains approval and respect from their parents and friends.

I really enjoyed this book. It was exciting and hard to put down. There is a lot of foreshadowing in the book which makes it exciting and fun to read. The book relates to the real world. It is about cultural diversity, disapproval, friendship, and love. In the real world all these things occur.

I would recommend this book to everyone. Everyone can learn something from this book. It has the power to change the way you think of someone when you meet them. You will not be as judgmental or draw conclusions as fast. It was also teach the importance of love and friendship. This book is great and anyone who reads it will love it!

In short this book will make you want to kill yourself. Truly. Reading this book was a painful experience for me. I didn't even have a choice. It's an Indiana 8th grade standard. What a joke. A 5 year old could read this sorry excuse for a book. Almost every single person in my Reading X class loathed this "book". The supposed "slang" that they use is pathetic. No one at all talks like that. "You are my hot sauce." ??!! seriously. this book is unrealistic, corny, fake
especially when Julio says to Romiette in a chat room "I dream about you"
theyve never met. and its in an online chat room. WTF?! everyone knows better than to say something creppy like that in person. but ONLINE.
another irritating thing is that they point out the simalarities between romiette and julio and romeo and julliet multiple times. as if draper thought the reader wasnt dumb engough reading the book. sharon draper creates the most stereotypical characters. SpanishLover? AfroQueen? I mean seriously.
Julio is also ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED WITH HOT SAUCE AND TEXAS. to the point that if he were a real person he may actually need intensive therapy.
plus they live at the end. they dont even DIE. and believe me i wanted them to. if your going to mirror romeo and juillet to the point that i want to puke you at least should make the ending correct to. i could predict the ending the moment i picked up the cheap copy of this cheap book.

this book is a cheesy, fake, stereotypical peice of garbage and save yourself the pain of not buying it.

no seriously.



dont buy it.



believe me. i suffered. i know.

I really tried to like this book because I enjoyed "Tears of a Tiger." The author once again used dialogue to convey her story, but this time moreso in a journal/chatroom session instead of conversation. Some people hate that type of thing, but I'm such a big fan of dialogue that I like it. But this story was utterly corny and it may have been somewhat my fault. I knew that the story was somewhat like Romeo and Juliet and I hated that story too. But I was hoping that Draper was going to put some edge on it, by adding gangs, interracial relationships, an urban setting, and a guy with multicolor hair.
But even with all this creativity she used, there were so many parts that were overwhelmingly unrealistic. One boy hits another one in the nose hard enough for it to turn blue but in a few seconds, befriends the person who hits them. Two people in a chatroom just so happen to be not only in the same state, same city, and same neighborhood, but go to the same school too. Now this IS a small world and that can happen, but a 16-year-old who happens to have a flower and carries hot sauce to woo some girl he doesn't know, I just can't see.
The instant connection they have is pretty cool, but they go from being cool and thinking each other are cute to talking about how they'll give their lives for each other. Then there are these random zodiac/astrology/remedies for love thrown in by another character. The dialogue was alright at first. "Peaceout" was actually popular when this book was written so although out of date now, readers have to consider the copyright date, although I think it was meant to be two words. But some of the vocabulary was just way too out there and teenagers don't talk like that. I felt like the author was CONSTANTLY reminding me that one character was Mexican by throwing in random Spanish words in a predominantly English conversation. I wouldn't even call it Spanglish because the words were so basic, like "hola" or "chico." Even when Julio talks to his friend, there is nothing that gives me a connection that they share the same heritage. I don't know if the author didn't go so far as to do that because she didn't want to shy off non-Spanish speakers, but if that's the case, don't put it in there at all. And the hot sauce thing was killing me. This boy carried hot sauce wherever he went and I went to a high school that was about 45% Latino. I never saw one Mexican, Puerto Rican, Guatemalan, Brazilian, etc. person carry around hot sauce. That was about as stereotypical as saying a black guy carried around a gold chain.
It was strange reading this book because in "Tears for a Tiger," the author was dead-on, so either she did some serious research afterwards or forgot it before. I got to page 145 and donated this book to my nearby library. After reading "Tears for a Tiger," I bought ALL of her other books, and I'm hoping I didn't make a mistake by doing so. We'll see with my next read.

to explain my situation a bit, im an 18 yr old female, who has been an avid reader of all sorts of books for as long as i can remeber. i still kick back with little kid books sometimes, when i feel like it. i still read books from my pre-teens, early teens, and i peruse every shelf of the library. with that said. i hate this book.
i also hate slang. which they use quite frequently, i guess to make the people in the book sound real. but they only sound annoying. everyones stereo-typical. [...] fun loving freak, etc... the slang makes me grit my teeth and the obviousness of the polt line, the lack of depth, and the random quick happenings annoy me. there is nothing gradual. its one minute they just met, that night they are practically in love. the author took all the meaning out of shakespeare and made his classic tragedy a cheap teen novel...in my opinion. youre free to make your own.
though who knows, if i wasnt such a dork ;) and didnt spend all my time reading, i may think this book was a gem. all i do know is that if i werent reading this book for a reading competition, i would have quit after the first chapter. and then burned it.

I read this book as a young teen when it first came out and it wasn't even good back then, for reasons other reviewers have already mentioned. One important detail is because these two meet over the internet, much of the book is outdated already, and includes abbreviations that no one uses anymore (if we ever did... did we?) And it will seem archaic in a few years. The dialogue is forced, the plot is so sadly predictable, and the concept is obviously unoriginal.