It’s Shakespeare as you’ve never played him before. It’d make a great gift for someone or a funny read-aloud at parties, but I don’t recommend trying to read through all the endings in one sitting, as I became rather tired of flipping pages around. But there are more exciting endings where she becomes a pirate embracing her single life, a maniacal serial killer, or on in which she meets a dude who appreciates her love of fitness and getting swole. There are the more conventional ones where she gets married and has kids. Since I primarily played as Juliet, I’ll share some of my favorite endings. There’s also a full list of all the artists in the back of the book, which I appreciated, since I tend to follow a lot of artists on Twitter and Instagram.

Some illustrations are more cartoonish, while others are detailed.

With multiple artists contributing, there isn’t one uniform art style, just a consistent color scheme. The artwork of the book is the best aspect. Pretty much he seemed to be in love with love. She’s a tomboy at heart and spends her days “getting buff.” Romeo was less compelling and didn’t seem to have as fun of a twist to his characterization. Readers can choose to go a more traditional route with the retelling of Romeo & Juliet, or they can really go for broke and pick the most outlandish events.Īt the start, you can choose whether you want to “play” as Romeo or Juliet. But the humor is bawdy and some of the adventures can be a bit more adult. However, the novelty of the CYOA format wears off quickly and Juliet’s routes were much more fun than Romeo’s (not that I mind too terribly).Ī little disclaimer that this isn’t a book for kids. It’s all sorts of fun with adorable artwork in shades of white, red, pink, and gray.

Romeo and/or Juliet by Ryan North is a choose-your-own-adventure retelling of the Shakespearean classic.