I was drawn to this book for two reasons. First, I had taught Romeo and Juliet to year 9 students for many years, so I was very familiar with the play. Familiarity, being the breeder of contempt, I also felt it was one of Shakespeare's weaker plays. It's the story of two kids no older than thirteen or fourteen, and that seems not much to hang what has become, in many people's minds, a quintessentially great love story. I don't think it is a great love story. It's a story of impulse, infatuation, immaturity and some pretty poor parenting, if you want my opinion. But it has assumed the mantle of what many suppose to be the greatest love story ever, so there you go.

The second thing that drew me to this book (in truth, the thing that first caught my attention) was its Choose-Your-Own-Adventure format. If you're not familiar with this kind of thing, the narrative is non-linear. Sections of the story are numbered and at the end of each section the reader is given options as to which part of the story to read next, or, as sometimes happens, where you meet an unexpected end. I first experienced this kind of story-telling when I was a kid, interested in all things Tolkien. I had a pair of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure hobbit stories. These kind of stories offer different paths and versions of the story based on a limited number of choices made by the reader, and assures that different readers' experiences, or reading paths, should be somewhat different.

If you think this kind of book would be good fun click the number one to follow the review: 1

If you think this kind of book sounds dumb, then click the number two to take a further look: 2