Prince of Shadows

One of my favorites retellings. This Romeo & Juliet retelling was quite creative and added depth to the side characters such as Benvolio, Mercutio and Rosaline. The writing is gorgeous and the author managed to immerse me in verona in a similar way the original novel did. The romance was slow-paced but mature and hard not to root for. Highly recommend for those who enjoyed the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet and found themselves needing more from the Capulets and Monatgues dynamics.

The play Romeo and Juliet is considered a cornerstone of classic literature and is a starting point for many high school students. It is no surprise, therefore, that there are books that aim to take a new look at the classic play. One such tale, Prince of Shadows by Rachel Caine tells the tale of Benvolio as he defends himself from Capulates by day, and then steals from them as the Prince of Shadows by night. This seemed like an interesting premise so I was excited to read on, and overall, I'm glad to say that I did.

This book features all of the characters you know and love from the original play. We see Benvolio, Romeo, and Marchuico as the friends we know them to be. They are loyal and have witty banter between them as they work to advance the house Montigue against house Capulet. One of the best elements of this book, from the viewpoint of Benvolio, is that we get to see just how much of a love-sick idiot Romeo is. This makes for a fun perspective as we see Benvolio try and stop his cousin from making a huge mistake, and then the dramatic irony, since we know he will fail.

The writing is also well done with the language striking a good chord, as the reader finds that it is approachable while also sounding like the time period in which it was based. As the story goes on, the author also manages to sneak in the lines from the play as well. This makes for a fun game as the reader hunts for the lines taken directly from the source while the author adds more context for the reader to enhance what has already been written.

As for negatives, there are not very many with this book, but I feel like I should name them nonetheless.

Firstly, if you are already not a fan of Romeo and Juliet, then I am sorry to say that I doubt this will change your mind. Since the book is entirely from Benvolio's perspective, we only see snippets of the play from his eyes, so while we the reader know what is happening, the author knows to fill the story with other plots to fill our time. This includes the author doubling down on the arranged marriage of Juliet and Count Paris, to show different people being married off to others, and schemes to make sure these weddings increase the standing of house Montague. If you do not like this kind of plot in general, then I suggest you look somewhere else for your classic story re-telling fix.

Also, at the end of the book, an element of magic is added for seemingly little reason whatsoever. When Marchiucio dies (spoilers!) and he says the line “A curse on both your houses”, it is discovered that he literally means a curse, like with a witch and spell. This means that we spend the last few chapters of the book with Benvolio running around trying to break the curse so he can be with Rosaline.

This feels like a misstep to me. For the majority of this book, magic has not come into the story at all. This is save for the occasional line that Romeo and Juliet might have been struck by magic, as they fell in love so fast (and even then, I thought it was in jest). So, in this book, instead of being a line on what Marchiucio feels is the senseless violence that both houses are doomed to repeat to the end of time, here is used as a ‘will-they-won't-they' plot device to see if Benvolio and Rosaline will end up together. This cheapens the lines' meaning from the original play and feels like something added at the last minute to extend the page count, and little else.

Still, I would say that this was a fun adaptation of a beloved classic. If you think you might like this then go for it. I highly recommend it. I give it a four out of five.