Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay

Juliet Immortal (Juliet Immortal #1)

Stacey Jay

307 pages

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Release Date: August 9th, 2011

Rate: Loved it

"She will fight for light, and he for dark, 
Battling through the ages for loves sweet spark. 
Wherever two souls adore truly, you will find them.
The brave Juliet and the wicked Romeo."

Juliet Immortal is the first book of the Juliet Immortal series. The plot of this story is quite unique. We really liked this book, because it is a total and brutal twist to the worldwide famous story of Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet.

The beloved star-crossed lovers from Verona, have not had a happily ever after dead either. The truth is that Juliet did not kill herself, Romeo murdered her. He sacrificed her soul for his own immortality, but with the only condition of serving the Dark Ambassadors (the dark side). However, he never expected that Juliet would accept a position in the Light Ambassadors troops in order to get revenge for her premature death; she was not meant to die. If she had not fell for Romeo, she would have had a normal live. It was not simply her moment to leave. 

Since then, every fifty years, Juliet is sent to Earth where Romeo is waiting for her to show up and kill her. Over and over again. They fight for new couples that have the potential to be soul mates. Juliet, for the Light, to the lovers to fall for each other. And Romeo, for the Dark, to make the girl kill her lover.

This battle has been going on since the beginning of time, and in our time, Light is loosing the battle. 

It has been a long time since Juliet has been called for a mission and when she awakes in Ariel's body, a girl who tried to kill his boyfriend when she found out that their relationship was just a bet, she awakes near Romeo. Well, apparently, the not-so-nice-Ariel's-fake-boyfriend is dead after dying in the car accident that Ariel caused and Romeo has inhabited his body. That has never happened before. It is true that Romeo always find Juliet, but in a couple of days before her appearance. 

While she tries to save her life and Ariel's, she meets Ben. He was in a car and happened to be near the accident. They run away from the scene when Romeo tries to kill Juliet even in front of an innocent person. 

Juliet and Ben are drawn to each other instantly, although Juliet resist her feelings reminding herself that she is not the owner of the body she is in. She was sent to Earth with a mission and she has to complete it, not fall for the cutest, honest and good guy that Ben is. 

Juliet cannot believe that Romeo has not followed her and kill her right away and she knows something is off. Therefore, when Romeo appears and explains to Juliet that they are alone in that city for the first time in centuries, he meant without any type of Ambassadors. Why? Romeo swears that is because is their time. The time when they start to love each other again, like nothing has ever happened, in order to save their souls and reclaim their old bodies, the ones where he was Romeo Montague and she Juliet Capulet. Can she trust him after all she is being truth with him? She did not kill her and betrayed once, but more than once in centuries and centuries of battling one another. And most important, can she love him again? That love she gave so purely, so innocent and selfless and was betrayed for eternity.

And then there's Ben. She knows she is falling for him, but everything gets more messed up when she discovers that one of the star-crossed lovers that she is sent here to save from Romeo's tricks is Ben and the other, Ariel's best friend, Gemma.

How can she still be in love with Ben when he is in love with Gemma? She is not Gemma's best friend, but it feels like betrayal. 

Would she risk everything for love or would she fight for the cause? Would Juliet be able to forgive Romeo and love him back in order to save herself for another fifty years in the mist even if that means saving Romeo as well, after everything he did? Would she renew her votes with the Light Ambassadors, will she betray them for love or will she let herself die forever?

"Love doesn't want people to stay ignorant and frightened. Love doesn't value obedience over all else. Love doesn't judge and find some lives--or loves--more valuable than others. Love doesn't use people and throw them away. Love stays, and makes you stronger, even when the person you love is gone."

We loved this book from the beginning to the end. At first we were suspicious because of how would be the story. We all have heard of Romeo & Juliet and we were afraid to be disappointed. Obviously, that was not the case. We were impressed and, of course, glad to see that Stacey Jay has done an excellent work balancing between paranormal things (immortal souls, The Ambassadors, etc.) and regular life things (school stuff, relationship problems, etc.). Although this mixture of genres, we did not feel lost or confused by the story not once and we were not annoyed by altering Shakespeare's story. We loved the twist of the story and how the plot was related. So well, we almost felt like we were on Juliet's skin, well... more or less. You know what we mean. The main character is strong, determined and full of emotions that she is enable to express because of what she chose to be when she was murdered by her lover. We felt betrayed hearing the story, we cried and we felt sorry for Juliet. We even wanted to help her and kill Romeo for her!

We also liked a lot the determination in Ben's character. It is like I know what I want, I know you want it, so marry me baby right now. Even when the situations get to a point when you, as a reader, think that have no solution left to rescue the situation, there goes Ben's personality kicking everything down. Despite this, we could not shake the feeling of a Romeo 2.0 in Ben's behavior. We mean, Romeo was young and desperate and heartbroken when he fell from Juliet. He truly believe he was in love with her and did everything in his power to ensure that the feeling would last forever, for eternity. Why is not Ben falling for the same temptation? Because of the second quote, book addicts! We were relieved to see that Ben was, in the end, everything we were hoping for. 

In conclusion, we enjoyed so much reading Juliet Immortal that we strongly recommend you guys this book. Is a great and creative story about two star-crossed lovers who die and die and die and fight. Now seriously, we recommend this book with a five gorjuss doll in our addiction ranking. We were so hooked up in this story that we could not wait a minute to start reading the second book of the series: Romeo Redeemed. You cannot miss Juliet's side of the story and if she gets her happily ever after.

"I love you. I want to do everything with you. I want to marry you and have kids with you and get old with you. And then I want to die the day before you do, so I never have to live without you."

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