★★★★★ 5
Beautiful and Hopeful...
Format: Kindle
“Olivia was right. The point of the choose your own adventure books was just that: Choice. It wasn’t about where you ended up; it was about the decisions you made to get there. And I don’t want to skip to the end anymore…” – Rosaline, When You Were Mine
If I could give this book 500 hearts I would, but my rating system only goes up to 5.
I’ve read a lot of great books lately, but When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle surpasses 95 percent of them. This book was amazing from start to finish. I am a lover of all things Shakespeare, so when I saw the synopsis for this book it was an automatic must read, plus guys the cover is so pretty!
I absolutely loved the format of this book and the writing was exceptional, but I think what I loved the most were the characters. Serle did an amazing job of shaping the characters in this book, from Rosaline, Charlie and Olivia to Ben Rob, Juliet and of course Len, who by the way I loved from the second he was introduced.
The plot and pacing of the book were perfect. I didn’t feel rushed when reading about Rosaline and Rob or Rosaline and Len. Seeing things unfold throughout the story and finding out what happened to cause the two sets of Caplet’s to drift apart was a bit twist. I wasn’t exactly that at all and the fact that Serle was able to surprise me at countless turns throughout the book sort of makes me want to glomp her with hugs, because that’s hard to do to me.
There were so many amazing parts in this book that it’s difficult to choose favorites, but at the same time I had such strong emotions to certain parts of this story that I feel I need to mention them. First the Fall Back Dance. My god…I can’t even tell you how a part of my heart genuinely broke for Rosaline. I felt her pain, like literally. I got all teary eyed and my chest tightened up and I think I was like ‘OMG Rebecca you’re so mean!’ Haha. But the scene was so well written, that I experienced what happened there with her.
Another scene that touched me was the piano scene with Len. It will probably go down in my like top ten scenes in a book between two characters ever. The way Serle describes what’s happening and the emotion flowing through both characters and Rosaline’s reaction to the music, just, I can’t even. I wouldn’t use gifs to explain my emotions right now, but I’m not sure any of them would accurately capture what this books has done to me.
The third scene that really broke me and my raw hatred of Juliet was the kitchen scene between her and Rosaline. All through the first couple of acts of the story I was hardcore hating on Juliet. Like reach into the book and pop her on the head kind of hate. But after this scene…I just couldn’t do it anymore. Serle managed to take the essential villain of the story and feel empathy for her.
God, this entire book was just made of so much win. I want to draw pink fluffy hearts around it and love it forever. I am so glad I bought the hardcopy version instead of the Kindle version because I will definitely be reading this again…and then most likely again. I’m currently writing this while I shove the book at my sister and tell her to read it so she can love it as much as I do.
If you haven’t read When You Were Mine, for the love of god get on it. This has been on my reading least for so long and I’m just getting around to it now, but honestly I wish I would have pushed it up on my list. Amazing, no other words for it, definitely check it out if you get the chance and if it’s sitting on your list, well, move it up it’s worth it!
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Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2014
