Book Review: When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle

When You Were Mine
by Rebecca Serle
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Expected Publication: May 1, 2012
Pages: 352
Age Demographic: Young Adult
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In this intensely romantic, modern recounting of the greatest love story ever told, Romeo’s original intended—Juliet’s cousin Rosaline—tells her side of the tale.

What’s in a name, Shakespeare? I’ll tell you: Everything.

Rosaline knows that she and Rob are destined to be together. Rose has been waiting for years for Rob to kiss her—and when he finally does, it’s perfect. But then Juliet moves back to town. Juliet, who used to be Rose’s best friend. Juliet, who now inexplicably hates her. Juliet, who is gorgeous, vindictive, and a little bit crazy… and who has set her sights on Rob. He doesn’t even stand a chance.

Rose is devastated over losing Rob to Juliet. This is not how the story was supposed to go. And when rumors start swirling about Juliet’s instability, her neediness, and her threats of suicide, Rose starts to fear not only for Rob’s heart, but also for his life. Because Shakespeare may have gotten the story wrong, but we all still know how it ends.

* Summary taken from Goodreads.

❝My Thoughts❞

When You Were Mine is a wonderfully charming story of first love, heartache, butterflies, and letting go. It's beautifully written and so movingly tender, that readers will be aching along with the characters. It's an emotionally modern re-telling of the classic Shakesphere playwrite, Romeo&Juliet. The blurb on the inside flap describes it as "the way Romeo&Juliet should have been told." Rebecca Serle pens a beautifully and cleverly written take on the classic playwrite.

Rose is a pretty amazingly realistic and awesome character to get to know. She's been in love with her best friend Rob, for what seems like forever. So, when he starts showing interest in her, she starts to believe that the two of them were always meant to be - that whatever happens, come what may they are meant to be together forever. For Rob, the first inkling of the tenderest feelings he's shown towards Rose doesn't last too long, when Juliet (Rose's cousin) walks in and he turns all his attention on her. Rose is devastated by this and goes through some pretty heavy emotions. She and Rob go from spending every day together, to not talking at all and Juliet is anything less than cruel to her for the better part of the time.

Rose has an amazing support system in place, in the form of two awesomely fierce best friends and an unlikely someone she never realized could ever be there for her in such an amazingly intense and caring way. Just when things start looking up for Rose, tragedy to the highest degree strikes both her and her family in such a hard hitting emotional way that she has to learn how to let go of the one person that she thought would always be there no matter what. It's a devastating blow and she almost loses it, until she realizes in the end that sometimes the best thing that can ever be done is learning to let go when you know there's nothing there to still grasp hold of.

Rebecca Serle does such a beautiful job of penning a story full of heartbreak, greif, bretrayal of all kinds, the tenderst of heartaches, losing and finding hope in the bleak aftermath of such a tragedy. When You Were Mine is a story about love and hope, life and death, and overcoming overwhelming odds when they are stacked against you and your family. It's a story of learning to look beyond the outer appearance and dig deeper to the core of beauty and love in its rarest form, learning not to miss what's been standing in front of you all along. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys love stories, with a positive outcome.

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ABOUT REBECCA SERLE

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Rebecca Serle is a full-time writer, which means she gets to wear pajamas to work. She went to the University of Southern California, then got her MFA from the New School in NYC. (She likes New York much more than LA, but don't tell anyone that.) Rebecca loves shiny hair, coffee, yoga, and pretending to be British. She, too, experienced heartbreak once. It worked out okay, though, because she turned the experience into her first novel, WHEN YOU WERE MINE. Find out more at rebeccaserle.com.

Author information taken from her .

{ This ARC was provided by ATW ARC Tours, in exchange for an honest review which I have provided. No money exchanged hands, I review books for fun because I love to read. I am not interested in monetary gain. Any piece of this ARC that was or wasn't quoted, is not part of the finished product and should not be perceived as such. Instead, you should compare and check it against a finished copy once it is released.}