HarperTeen
256 pages
August 31, 2010
Buy 
@ Amazon.com
@ Amazon.com 
The classic Romeo & Juliet tale, but with a twist. The Capulet and Montague families have a deep hatred of one another--a blood feud really. Only in Romeo & Juliet & Vampires, it's a rather literally blood feud.The Capulets are a great and powerful vampire family and the Montagues are a strong, forceful vampire hunting family. Each believes strongly that the world would be much better without the existence of the other. With a treaty in place to 'stop' the Capulets from killing humans and the Montagues from kiling vampires, things have settled somewhat but the hatred is still simmering.
When Juliet, the only Capulet daughter, and Romeo a Montague son, meet and fall hopelessly in love they know their future together won't be easy or smooth sailing but they have no idea just what all they will encounter and how much they will be tested.
I was excited at the prospect of a book that was mixing Romeo & Juliet and vampires directly after so, so many vampire books have pulled on Romeo & Juliet and I have to say I liked this book even more than I expected I would.
Claudia Gabel's vampire infused adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is so much more than simply the classic tale with fangs stuck onto the characters. While the underlying storyline did stay very true to Shakespeare's original Romeo and Juliet, Gabel's vampire storyline felt like an original tale, too. The supernatural elements never felt forced or stuck into someone else's story--it was all a fully integrated, completely enjoyable story.
I haven't read any of the other classics/supernatural creature mash-ups before but if any of them are as good as this was, I'll have to give them a shot.
Another thing I noticed while reading Romeo & Juliet & Vampires was that I was able to keep track of the relationships between the characters a lot better than when I read Romeo & Juliet. I don't know if that's because this was in modern prose or why . . . but anyone who needs to read it for school might want to give this a shot (in addition to the non-vampire one!!) if you can be sure you won't include vampires on any tests or essays!
Both the classic Romeo & Juliet plot and the adapted vampire-y Romeo & Juliet plot are great. The Romeo and Juliet characters were great and I could especially understand Juliet and her struggle.
I hope you'll give this one a try (perhaps through the giveaway I have coming up next post--along with an author interview?)
10/10
Thank you muchly to HarperTeen for this book
and here for my Video Veneris is R&J&V's trailer:
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