There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou is a classy lady and I completely agree with her. Every fictional and true story has the right to be told and heard. Well, unless your story is stupid. Then you should probably go sit in a corner and reflect over your many failings as a human being.
I once told a stupid story. It was an 8th grade narrative prompt about the smell of oranges. I spun some sad loony tale about an old woman dying on her bed and reflecting back on her life in her last moments—a reflection triggered by the smell of oranges that were handily growing outside her window. It was supposed to be heartbreakingly sweet and touching; in short, a complete load of bull. My teacher swallowed it up though and gave me the only A in class. She also made me read it out loud to the class, which normally would have been embarrassing but I used to - cough - revel at such opportunities to rub it in. But like I said, it was a stupid story. The lesson to be learned from that, children, is don’t ever write a stupid story. Unless you’re me. Because you will fail. And we will laugh at you.
Now that we have yet another instance of me being absolutely delightful out of the way I would like to share a very intimate and private activity of mine. And mind you, it’s a favorite. Are you ready for this? Ready for the intimate and private act we’re going to embark on together in this week’s column? Alright here it goes… We’re going to, wait for it … tear out the innards of a stupid book inspired by an even more stupid story and we’re going to glorify in decimating it together— cue loud and wild celebratory cheering. But really, be cool guys.
I am a big fan of Shakespeare’s writing. His characters are twisted and interesting; his metaphors are elaborately dramatic yet delightful and his stories, for the most part, are pretty good. What I cannot stomach, though, is what most consider his best work about the greatest pair of lovers there ever were—“Romeo and Juliet,” pfft. I don’t think I could possibly have more disdain, even if I tried, than I do for these star-crossed morons. I’m well aware of the extent of stupidity teenagers are capable of; however, you need to be a special brand of vacuous to be able to singlehandedly destroy your life as brilliantly as these insipid fools do. The only thing worse than that is a modern paranormal romance series that rewrites the entire “Romeo and Juliet” story.
Cue “Juliet Immortal” and the sequel “Romeo Redeemed” by Stacey Jay, who just could not let these dimwits stay dead. In this “true” version of the tale, Juliet was (surprise, surprise) betrayed and murdered by Romeo so that he could be granted immortality by the “bad” guys called Mercenaries. Much to Romeo’s failed snarky dismay, Juliet is granted the same by the Ambassadors who are the “good” guys. The Mercenaries’ mission statement is to break up true love by any means possible, because they honestly have nothing better to do than get in the path of exchanging hallmark cards and cloyingly sweet candy love. Whereas the Ambassadors sit on their high horse promoting true love and soul mates (and probably are the founders of match.com and Tinder). Hence a 700 year long snit between the two ensues. They are sworn enemies out for each other’s throats; fighting over the souls of true lovers in this sad mimicry of the epic battle between light and dark forces. Why people can’t just shut up and watch Star Wars is beyond me.
The first book assaults you with 17-year-old Ariel on a date with Dylan, which does not just end with a car crash but continues with Juliet waking up in Ariel’s body and Romeo in Dylan’s. Since Romeo is out to kill her, Juliet barely escapes and instead meets full-of-teen-angst Ben; whereupon they both fall into mutual stupidity, or as the morons would refer to it “love at first sight.” This lovely tale then goes on to end with a love hexagon, leaving you salivating for more.
“Romeo Redeemed” embarks on Romeo’s tale of finally finding true love and some shred of good within his “rotting corpse,” with the obviously unpopular human Ariel who also conveniently enough happens to be pivotal to the fates of both paranormal sides. Add in the parallel universe, the multiple alternate realities and the three days to make love happen and these two books make a wonderful plethora of utterly unimaginative crap.
Think you can convince Maham of the merits of “Romeo and Juliet” and true love? Drop her a note at mhasan4@wisc.edu.
