Author: Rebecca Serle
Release Date: May 1st, 2012
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 334
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: ARC for review

Rating: ★★★★★

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…

When You Were Mine is an extremely compelling book. It's much more difficult to explain than just simply saying a modern recounting of Romeo and Juliet. In my opinion it was much deeper than a mere recounting of a story. I just can't think of the best way to describe what it's like, other than that. It's a complex and rich love story, filled with both grief and happy moments. Rebecca Serle has come out swinging with this beautiful debut novel.

Most of us know the story of Romeo and Juliet. It's common reading for pretty much anyone at some point during school. And if you've read the play, you know that Romeo's first love was Rosaline. And then of course he ended up with Juliet which is the part of the story we all know best. Earlier when I mentioned that this book is much harder to explain than just calling it a recounting is because of the story itself. I guess you could say it's a play on the story, which in some senses could be classified as a recounting.. It just didn't feel like that for me. Rebecca's story is told from Rosaline's perspective, but it's not what you might be thinking. Rose and Rob have always been close friends, and it's easy to tell that there could of been something between them. But then Juliet, which is Rose's cousin.. comes into play and takes Rob away from Rose. It's hard to try and explain everything, but if you've read Romeo and Juliet I really feel like you will pick up on the story really quickly.

There isn't really much to say about the characters in this book. I enjoyed them, and I thought they were written extremely well. But when you're dealing with a story such as this, that's trying to do what it's doing, you're going to have a lot of mixed views on the characters. Don't think you will be seeing the whole cast of Romeo and Juliet in this book though, since it's not a retelling by nay means. The only real similarities in this book are Rosaline, Juliet and the family names Caplet and Monteg which are obviously a play on the families from Romeo and Juliet which were the Capulets and the Montagues. You really just have to read the book to truly grasp how all of the characters play into the story.

The last sixty or seventy pages are where it starts to get really interesting. I don't really want to go into much detail, but there is a ton of depth added to the story towards the end. There is depth throughout the entire story, but towards the end you're hit with a huge dose of it. I can't really quote the book, since I have an ARC version of it and I don't know if anything that I want to talk about will be changed. One thing I do want to talk about it is something Rosaline talks about in the epilogue. And that's how stories never just have one ending. The ending is simply what the author, reader or person living the story chooses for them self. Even as readers we have the freedom to think about different outcomes other than the one the author wrote for the book. And of course the author goes though a lot of choices throughout their writing process to find an ending for their story that they are comfortable with. It's just intriguing how something such as that, which seems so simple to think about but in reality is extremely complex can play such a huge part in a story like this.

This book is amazing, and I would highly recommend it. It's a lot deeper than I ever could have imagined, I finished it and thought about it for quite awhile. I really wish I could of thought of a better way to explain exactly what I thought of this story, but the description just didn't do it justice in my opinion. It's well worth reading though if you think it's something you might enjoy. It's so much more than a simple contemporary romance novel.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this book for review.