Julieta and the Romeos

Gr 9 Up–Julieta’s passion for writing leads to a competitive summer program with a well-known author in New York. When her best friend’s brother Ryan, a boy she has been at odds with for years, suddenly shows up on the bus with her to class, she is annoyed and confused by his efforts to connect with her. But Julieta has more important distractions including her parents’ failing business, her estrangement from her best friend, the secret identity of her online collaborator, and the emergence of two other Romeos, Calvin and Lucas. Julieta’s attention is primarily focused on determining which of the three Romeos is secretly collaborating with her on an online story that has strong parallels to her own romantic narrative. Calvin, Lucas, and Ryan bring out different versions of who Julieta wants to be, and she is convinced that one of them is not only her collaborator but her perfect match. As she comes close to finding the collaborator’s identity, she learns that the narrative she created for herself is limiting her perspective. The plot moves at a compelling pace with numerous threads that facilitate character development. Readers will be in suspense about the identity of Julieta’s online collaborator and her ultimate Romeo right up until the final chapters. Julieta speaks Spanish and her parents are from Argentina.