Now we have the newly released Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons. I received an audiobook ARC of this through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this novel and Solomons’ reimagining of the play a great deal. There is a creepy, almost horror vibe to this book. Death imagery is everywhere as this already tragic story is given an even darker tone. The book opens with the death of Rosaline’s mother as a plague runs rampant in Verona. Once they are out of quarantine, Rosaline’s father announces that she will be sent to a nunnery, which was her mother’s wish for her. This leads Rosaline to sneak into a Montague party, disguised as a man where she meets and develops a mutual infatuation with Romeo. As the story continues, he sneaks into her room through the balcony and their relationship becomes physical, even as Rosaline slowly gains information on Romeo’s pattern of seducing young women and girls with Friar Laurence aiding him in manipulating and disposing of them.

My favorite aspect of this novel is the depiction of women living in Renaissance Italy. Often, people will imagine the past as even more oppressive and regressive than it was. Yes, women had far fewer opportunities than they do now. But that doesn’t mean that all women did nothing but cook and clean and bear children, or in the case of nuns, spend all day praying. There were job opportunities for women and nuns could pursue different fields of study, aiding their communities. Throughout the novel, Rosaline encounters quite a few different types of women and works with them in attempting to save Juliet. I wish period drama media had more nuanced depictions of women like this with women acting within the restrictions of their culture and trying to thrive as best they could.

I also appreciated how Juliet’s age was treated as an actual concern. Many times, people will handwave situations like this with “that’s how it was back then.” Well, that’s not entirely true. Yes, it was legal for girls to be married at young ages, but it was not common. Since one of the goals of marriage was the production of multiple healthy children, the bride being able to safely produce those healthy children was essential. So while there were outliers like Margaert Beaufort who became a widowed single mom by the age of 13, that was rare. Why? Because while Margert survived the birth of her son, other girls who were still growing might not. Besides, despite being married three times, Margaret had only that one child, suggesting that carrying and giving birth to that child at such a young age may have harmed her body to the point where she became unable to have more children. 

So Solomons is right to highlight the issues with Juliet’s age. Furthermore, Shakespeare himself highlighted the issue as well. For some reason, the bard chose to change Juliet’s age from almost 16 to 13. He also has Juliet’s father note how young she is when Paris attempts to arrange a marriage with her. This is significant because those lines don’t need to be included. But they were. While I’m not certain Shakespeare intended for Romeo to seem as predatory as Solomons depicts him, especially since Juliet’s father eventually agrees to marry her to Paris, it does seem as though this romance isn’t intended to be as glorified as it became.

So it was great seeing Juliet depicted in this novel as a girl who is still a child while also dealing with very adult concerns.

What I disliked about the book is how Rosaline still returns Romeo’s feelings by the time he meets Juliet. I understand that he is being set up as the overarching villain of the story, becoming easily infatuated with women only to use them and discard them once someone else catches his attention. But a key part of the play is that Rosaline has rejected Romeo and he begins the story by stalking her to her uncle’s home where he finds Juliet. This could have easily been resolved by having Rosaline accept the mountain of evidence for Romeo’s lies and manipulations before the party and breaking things off with him. That way, he could continue to pursue her against her wishes, as he does in the play, only to transition his obsession from her to Juliet.

Overall, I really loved this book and gave it four and a half stars. The gritty realism of it and nuanced depictions of women really drew me in.