The Juliet Club

June 9, 2008
After winning a Shakespeare essay contest, practical Kate is off to Verona, Italy, to attend a summer seminar about Romeo and Juliet.
There, at a romantic villa, she and her classmates act out scenes from the play, learn Elizabethan dances and answer letters written to Juliet from teenagers who are, as her dramatic professor puts it, “lost, wandering, desperate for advice about love.” (A real-life club in Verona answers thousands of such letters each year.) Of course, in the true spirit of the Bard, they also experience romantic complications: Kate and flirty Giacomo discover the other students plotting to “pull a Beatrice and Benedick” (from Much Ado About Nothing
) and make them fall in love with each other. Although Harper’s wit is less acute than in her debut, The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney
, her sense of humor and flair for playful dialogue remain strong enough to overcome the predictable narrative arc. Plenty of drama—on- and offstage—will keep readers in their seats. Ages 12–up.