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When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle (view source)
Revision as of 12:25, 22 April 2018
, 12:25, 22 April 2018no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=When You Were Mine
|author=Rebecca Serle
|reviewer=Jill Murphy
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|pages=352
|publisher=Simon & Schuster
|date=April 2012
|isbn=0857075160
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0857075160</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=<amazonus>1442433132</amazonus>0857075160|videoaznus=1442433132
}}
In this modern-day retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Rosaline has been best friends with Rob ever since they were tiny. But recently, their friendship has grown. The electric crackle of attraction is sparking between them and they are tentatively inching their way towards a relationship. One night they kiss and Rosaline believes they are about to become the couple she has always believed they were destined to be. But then her estranged cousin Juliet arrives back in town. She makes it clear she wants Rob and will stop at nothing to get him. Rosaline can do nothing but watch as Juliet steals her boyfriend ''and'' her best friend...
I was really looking forward to reading ''When You Were Mine'' - I loved the Shakespearan idea, there's been a deal of pre-publication interest and movie rights have already been sold, and although it's a debut novel, the author has a longstanding involvement in YA fiction. Everything looked good and so it is with crashing disappointment I report that I really didn't like this book.
Serle doesn't make any more than a very superficial use of the play - Rob and Juliet fall in love but their relationship is doomed from the get-go. That's it, really. Even the very basic idea of Rosaline that Shakespeare gives us - she rejects Romeo, not the other way around - isn't taken up. Juliet spends most of the book as a cardboard cut-out of an evil bitch who's only good for slut-shaming (and slut-shaming ''really'' sets my teeth on edge). There isn't any real discussion of the main themes of the play beyond young love (and perhaps a bit of chance). And I didn't like the main characters - Rosaline and her friends are vapid, boy-and-fashion-obsessed, and Serle spends endless pages describing their success at manipulating the high school pecking order. Best friend Charlie's main virtue is presented as her sharp-elbowed ability to get herself to the front of the popularity schoolqueue. Sigh.
It's not that all this isn't credible or that readers won't immediately recognise and identity with the emotional landscape inhabited by Rosaline and her friends - they will. It's just that ''When You Were Mine'' is a fairly flimsy high school romance with some Shakesperean window dressing, not an interesting take on a beloved and classic play.
For some intensely romantic books about ill-fated first loves, you could look at [[Dangerous to Know by Katy Moran]] and [[Lucas by Kevin Brooks]]. Or if you want to see what a YA author can achieve when riffing on Shakespeare, try [[Exposure by Mal Peet]], an updating of Othello.
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