I love cutesy YA that parallels classic literature, and I was quite excited to dive into this one but it ultimately fell a little flat for me. I think, for the most part, readers will love it but I went in expecting something a bit different and I feel that in that, more than anything, I shot myself in the foot. I look forward to more from this author, though. I just think this particular read wasn't for me so much.

Romeo & What's Her Name transported me right back to high school, where a good chunk of my daily gossip consisted of boys, boys, boys. Emily is a cute, bubbly, klutzy protagonist that you can't to cheer for on her quest to find the courage to just speak to her major crush Wes!

I will say that unless you can take your "adult" mind out of the reading, you may not like this book; it is very much a book for teenagers. But that is what I absolutely loved. I have been around friends who have acted exactly like Emily, thinking up crazy ideas to get near their crushes, and that is what I really enjoyed about this book. I love that Emily, who isn't very good at English to begin with, is like "Yes! Becoming the understudy for Juliet, one of Shakespeare's most well-known heroines, will work perfectly!" And, as you may have guessed, it doesn't!

Of course, this kooky plan is supported by Emily's gals. That, over all else, is what really clinched the book for me. I am a sucker for tight, supportive, girl-power friendships. Emily and her gals give me a feeling of my tight knit group in high school; we were just as boy-crazy and very silly because of it. They stick by Emily no matter what happens, proving that no matter how boy-crazy girls can be, their friends are more important.

The romance is adorable, and the leading man, Wes, has been Emily's crush since they were in grade school! Talk about fanning a flame. During the romance, you don't learn much about Wes individually as a person, just how Emily sees him. This is the one area that I wished was more developed. I love a romance, but I want more than just "He's super hot and super nice!".

A great book to pick up just in time for Valentine's Day, Romeo & What's Her Name is a quick, fun, light-hearted romance that's sure to bring a smile to your face.

I DNFed Romeo & What’s Her Name earlier this year, but I wanted to snark it for a friend (because I hate myself and my friend apparently), so I found myself in the unfortunate position of having to finish. It’s not good. In fact, it’s atrocious.

One thing I will absolutely never understand is why someone would write a story inspired by the work of another author only to constantly rip on that author. Like, the Shakespeare reference is clear in the title. This means that many people who pick this book up (like myself) are hoping for a cute Shakespeare retelling or at least some clever references. Instead, it’s just Emily talking about how stupid and impossible Shakespeare’s writing is. This does not endear Emily to me.

Then again, Emily is absolutely the worst human ever, so being hated by her is really a compliment. I feel like she’s meant to be charmingly obsessive and awkward, but Emily is an actual stalker. She notices that her crush, Wes, has taken down all of his photos from the Facebook stand-in somewhere between the previous night and the following morning. SHE CHECKS ALL OF HIS PHOTOS MULTIPLE TIMES A DAY. She wishes she had a recording of his laugh so she could listen to it on repeat. Like, honestly, if this story were realistic, she would murder Wes’ new crush and lock him in her basement.

The plot is heinous, something the book even acknowledges sometimes. The book’s meant to be hilarious, but the only thing it induces is cringing. The scene where Emily inevitably needs to act in the scene she didn’t bother to memorize is abjectly painful. Her grand gesture to Wes, in which she tries to write like Shakespeare, is more-so. There’s also just know way Wes would be into this girl. And no way that Emily would have friends, considering that she is selfish and talks about NOTHING but Wes.

The writing’s also just horrific, though that should come as no surprise. Do not read this book. It is perhaps the worst thing published by Swoon Reads thus far, which is truly an accomplishment.

Thank you for the chance to review this book, however, unfortunately, I was unable to read and review this title before it was archived.

Simple ya read that teens will enjoy. The characters were like able which made the book more pleasant to read.

Funny, romantic and sweet, this book will have you simultaneously laughing and rooting for the main characters. A job well done!

I honestly tried to read this book, but the main character is just too annoying. She is immature, casually dumb, and too boy obsessed. I love YA romance, I'm fine with immediate attraction, and I was a teenage girl once so I even get boy crazy, but...I couldn't get past chapter 6 (14% on kindle). I'm also a huge Shakespeare fan (and I taught 9th grade English so don't tell me all teens hate Shakespeare), so her immaturity with regard to the Bard was more than I could handle.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary: Emily has been in love with Wes for as long as she can remember. She will do anything she can to spend more time with him. So, when she finds out the newly single Wes is auditioning for the role of Romeo in an upcoming Shakespeare festival, Emily has her heart set on Juliet. Instead it goes to her enemy, Ashley, but at least Emily gets to be the understudy. As rehearsals go on, Emily tries to get closer to Wes, but that proves hard with Ashley’s demands, lines to memorize, and friendships to grow. Will Emily be able to perform the role? Will she get Ashley to step out of the way? Are Wes and Emily meant to be anything more?

Review: This book isn’t trying to be some great new American classic or anything. All it wants to do is be a silly little romance and that is basically all that it is. The romance is sweet, but simple. Wes is sometimes too perfect of a guy. Honestly, I can’t think of any flaws he has. That trope is slightly annoying, but at least it makes for some swoony guys. The romance between them is sweet. I liked the fact that he seemed to like her as a person and that they have a previously established relationship, that always makes the romance feel much more believable for me. I do feel like the timeline of this book was a little strange, like it felt like it hit the climax with 150 pages left, so it didn’t know where to hit after that. There was a female character who was nothing but evil, which is not my favorite, however we did have some nice female friendships. Emily’s relationships with her two best friends was my favorite aspect. I liked how each of them had their own interests in theatre and were passionate about it. I also related to Jill as a short, female, book lover director. I would have read tons more about them- give me all of the females working together to put on a play. I think this novel was good if you want a short read or trying to get out of a slump. I do think the storyline was rushed through too much, but I would gladly follow these characters in another novel.

Light, cute, and refreshing. Such a fun story and characters. I will definitely be reading more from this author and reading this again.

Delightful, fun, readable, relatable. A for sure buy for my school!

Everything about this screams teen chick lit! From the slightly klutzy and comedic Emily to the handsome Wes, we are treated to high school life via the role of a regular girl. She begs to become an understudy in the school's annual Shakespeare event, but the 'star', Amanda, keeps her so busy, she is unprepared when it's her turn to shine. This was a cute, fast read that would be appropriate for younger teens, but still interesting for older ones looking for a cute and fun read.

Really cute and funny read. Emily can help but crush on Wes, and when he is cast as Romeo, she is excited to be cast as Juliet's understudy. Only, Emily gets no time to practice with him, since the real Juliet, Amanda, is making her run errands and seems intent on keeping Emily and Wes apart. When the real Juliet has an accident and Emily is thrust into the limelight, she will have to deal with disappointing her BFF, who is directing the play, and try to finally let Wes know how she feels about him.

Couldn't stop laughing, really an enjoyable book!

ROMEO AND WHAT'S HER NAME is unexpectedly funny and sweet contemporary young adult romance.

Emily Stein is crushing on Wes Rosenthal, and what better way to be close to him than to be the understudy of Juliet to his Romeo? However, she didn't think she'd have the chance to actually play Juliet, plus she was kept busy by Amanda--who was playing Juliet--doing errands, and so she didn't have a chance to really learn her lines. On the fateful day, Amanda wasn't able to go on stage, so guess who had to take her place?

What ensued was a hilarious comedy of errors. Comedy is very subjective, and while some authors had been able to draw a laugh or two from me, I surprised myself by my reaction to the Romeo & Juliet balcony scene as played by Wes and Emily. I snorted, I laughed out loud, I couldn't stop laughing! If I had been reading in public, people surely would've been looking askance at me and wondering if I was crazy. But this scene didn't just drop out of the blue. It was consistent with the character's personality, which made it all the more enjoyable to read because I could totally envision this scene happening.

Love Em's BFFs, Katie and Jill. They were awesome, making me wish I have such friends, too! Their full-out support of Em--totally priceless.

I just had a minor quibble about Wes, something he said toward the end, about his declaration. I thought it wasn't that believable. I'd have liked it better if he hadn't said it. That would've been more realistic, in light of ___ (sorry, spoiler). Or, maybe if we'd seen some things from his point of view, heard his thoughts, such a declaration would've been more believable.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Opening line:
""What's so urgent?" my best friend Jillian Frankel called out as she made her way through the throngs of juniors clogging the halls of Shaker Heights High School."

Cute story about young love. Emily has a crush on Wes. She works out every way to see him, like hanging around her friends locker which is by his or trying out for the Romeo & Juliet scene to be his Juliet. And of course, every possible embarrassment happens plus like-the-friend-to-make-Wes-jealous.
I really liked Emily's BFF's. They were good friends through everything.

I'd recommend this book to any teen reader. Good, clean, fun read!

Thanks to netgalley for the early read!

Every now and then I have to dip into chick teen lit. This wasn't a feminist manifesto, but it was ok.

This book was ok. Not great, not bad, just ok. As I read this book I felt like I didn’t really much about any of the characters. All I really knew about Emily, the main character, is that she worked at a grocery store and made up a cart Olympics game, liked Wes, wasn’t the biggest fan of Shakespeare, liked Wes, didn’t like Amanda and oh yea, did I mention she liked Wes. I’m not saying these are bad things, I’m just pointing out the fact the she had a pretty single track mind. All her and her friends ever seemed to talk about was boys. I know when I was sixteen me and my friends talked about boys a lot too but that wasn’t the sole topic of our conversations as it tended to be for these girls. Also let’s get on the topic of Wes, I understand that Emily liked Wes and had liked him for a long time, but as I reader I wasn’t necessarily a huge part of the Wes fan club. If anything I was indifferent to him as I didn’t really get to know him all that well. All I really feel like I learned about him is that he had a girlfriend that went to a different school that he broke up with, he got a new car, and he had a bad habit of always saying yes to people. All in all, I think this book would’ve been better had the characters been a little more fleshed out.

I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars.

GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1885231125?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

I remember when my high school did the production of Romeo and Juliet. I was casted as Lady Montague. Hey, I was a sophomore and most of the roles went to juniors and seniors. It was so cliché because the guy and girl that played Romeo and Juliet were good friends (NOT DATING) but won Prom Queen and King! I know so typical of high school. They were both my friends and am still friends with the girl that played Juliet. They are good people, and didn’t have a mean bone. So I will say that my Juliet and Romeo were NOTHING like these two characters. I liked mine a whole lot better.

Our protagonist in this book is Emily. She likes to keep to herself and do her own thing. Not big on joining things, but she has her two best friends and those two girls mean the world to her. Emily also has a secret crush on the guy that she has known for years, Wes. They used to hangout when they were younger and even went to each other’s Bar/Bat mitzvah. When the opportunity to be around Wes ever arises, Emily jumps on it. She found out he was audition for the part of Romeo for their English class assignment. This was Emily’s chance. Only problem was the ‘beautiful, mean, popular girl’ Amanda was determined to have Wes and the part of Juliet.

Emily’s story at times is hard to read. I mean this girl is a train-wreck for embarrassing moments. You name the embarrassment, it probably has happened to her or at least does during the story. Emily’s best friends, Jill and Kayla are amazing and so supportive.

Wes is an all-around good guy. He is also a people pleaser and you can tell while reading the story that people use him and try to walk over him. He goes out of his way to be nice to everyone and tries to include people. No matter how many times Emily does something - consider by the majority - embarrassing, he is always positive and encouraging.

The story wasn’t too bad. I finished it within a day. The characters were entertaining, but the overall story was lacking something. I think we need more meat between Emily and Wes. I mean something more. The ended was a HEA, but I wish there was a prologue. Her two friends have boyfriends, so there is no way the author is going to right about Jill and Kayla. Who knows?


I give the book a 3. It wasn’t horrible, but I probably won’t read it again.

If you want a quick and corky read, this is fine as a YA.

What I did like was, the references to Cinderella and the 80’s movie Say Anything. Aggggg one of my fav’s.

As someone who teaches Romeo and Juliet every year, I really enjoyed this fun take on the romance of story and the way that teenagers get the story! I loved the fun banter, the missed opportunities and of course the Shakespeare! Super fun and quick read for the romantic who may or may not love the works of the Bard!

As a fan of the Swoon Reads line, I was excited to dive into Romeo & What’s Her Name. Like Emily, I find reading Shakespeare to not be an easy experience, so I knew right away that this was going to be a fun book.

Emily has had a crush on her neighbor for years now, and now that Wes is single again, Emily is determined to put herself out there. The perfect opportunity is presented to her when she finds out that Wes will be trying out for the part of Romeo in their school’s celebration of Shakespeare. Emily decides that she’s going to try out to be Juliet, which will also give her the extra credit she desperately needs for her English class. When Emily loses out on the part to her nemesis, she convinces one of her best friends, who also happens to be directing this scene, to cast her as the understudy so that she can still be close to Wes. But it’s only one night so she doesn’t really need to learn the lines. That is until Amanda is rushed to the hospital the night before and Emily has to quickly learn all of the lines.

Based off of the synopsis, I expected the play to be the main focus of the entire book, so I was surprised that the play was only one scene and that it occurred towards the beginning of the book. The actual aftermath of the disastrous scene is what comprises most of the book. Emily is a klutz, which I can relate to, but she takes it to a whole new level while performing in front of the entire school. Her embarrassing moments were funny yet so cringe-worthy. There were several times where I had to look away for a second before continuing on. The secondhand embarrassment is that real.

The characters were fun. I loved that Emily had two best friends who stuck with her no matter what. And Wes was just so sweet. I could definitely understand why Emily had liked him for so long. There were a few parts that were overly dramatic, but what else would you expect from a book that has a drama as the central part? There were several miscommunications that were frustrating and could have honestly been cut.

Overall, Romeo & What’s Her Name was just the fluffy read I needed. I would recommend this for younger teens looking for a cute and funny read.

My Rating: 3.5 stars

Very mild spoilers for the book.

Romeo and What’s Her Name gets an extra half point for making me laugh at two scenes. The author definitely has the ability to write slapstick comedy – and I honestly think she should keep going with that.

The rest of the book was completely predictable, with flat prose and painfully shallow characters. There isn’t any growth in any of them. It’s like reading the lightest fluff possible – so light that if you breathe a little too hard, the entire story will blow away like dandelion weeds. The prose was cliched (“those giant brown eyes, that little dimple in his right cheek that’s so deep you just want to poke it, the chiseled jawline that ought to belong to a Disney Prince” – and that’s just on the first page), and I guessed almost every second of the story – except when it was going to end. I considered DNFing at 50 per cent and then again at 60, 70, 80, and 90 – each time thinking the story would end there. But it didn’t.

The other issue is that the synopsis deceives you into thinking that this is a book about a girl learning to love Shakespeare. Let me just set that straight right here: it’s not about Shakespeare. It’s never about a love of literature. That whole thing about her doing the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet? It only goes on until about 35%! The rest is just the hijinks of Emily trying to get the guy. It reads incredibly young, and sadly there’s really nothing that makes Emily likeable or interesting.

What kept me going during this hot mess was a perverse desire to see how this train wreck was going to end. And thank goodness there is a little bit of circularity to the ending. But honestly, this is one of the worst books I’ve read in awhile. If you’re a younger teen or even a middle grade reader who only wants fluff, this might be for you. But I need at least a little weight in my books, and this one has none.