Julieta and the Romeos

by Maria E. Andreu

Overview

You’ve Got Mail meets a YA Beach Read with a bookish mystery at its heart in the newest rom-com from Maria E. Andreu. The ideal next read for fans of Emily Henry, Kasie West, and Jennifer E. Smith.

Julieta isn’t looking for her Romeo—but she is writing about love. When her summer writing teacher encourages the class to publish their work online, the last thing she’s expecting is to get a notification that her rom-com has a mysterious new contributor, Happily Ever Drafter. Julieta knows that happily ever afters aren’t real. (Case in point: her parents’ imploding marriage.) But then again, could this be her very own meet-cute?

As things start to heat up in her fiction, Julieta can’t help but notice three boys in her real life: her best friend’s brother (aka her nemesis), the boy next door (well, to her abuela), and her oldest friend (who is suddenly looking . . . hot?). Could one of them be her mysterious collaborator? But even if Julieta finds her Romeo, she’ll have to remember that life is full of plot twists. . . . 

From the author of Love in English comes a fresh take on love and romance, and a reminder to always be the author of your own life story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062996541
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/16/2023
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	19,462
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Maria E. Andreu is an Argentinian American author whose work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and the Newark Star-Ledger. Her debut young adult novel, The Secret Side of Empty, was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a National Indie Excellence Book Award winner.

Editorial Reviews

An engaging tale of family and identity wrapped up in a sweet rom-com.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will be in suspense about the identity of Julieta’s online collaborator and her ultimate Romeo right up until the final chapters. This is a fun and introspective romance that transcends the expected Romeo and Juliet tropes.” — School Library Journal

“[With] many well-drawn characters and lively dialogue…. Andreu offers an involving portrayal of Jules and her summer of writing and romance.” — ALA Booklist

“A fun, heartfelt reimagining of the story we all know so well (but maybe not as well as we think!), Julieta and the Romeos juggles not one, not two, but three swoon-worthy romances, with a thoroughly modern Julieta who isn’t afraid to go after what she wants.”
— Katharine McGee, author of the New York Times bestselling American Royals series

From the Publisher

05/01/2023

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. VERDICT This is a fun and introspective romance that transcends the expected Romeo and Juliet tropes. Romance collections will benefit from this solid addition.—Lynn Rashid

School Library Journal

2023-02-25
Aspiring writer Julieta, the daughter of Argentinian immigrants, has an eventful summer.

A creative-writing course with her favorite romance author and the three Romeos who capture her imagination offer Jules distractions from the fate of her parents’ struggling restaurant. Ryan, the “rich, fratty, know-it-all”—but good-looking—twin brother of her White best friend, Ivy, is also in the writing class, and Jules is surprised to learn he, too, doubts his abilities. Jules works at the restaurant alongside handsome Argentinian American childhood friend Lucas. Grounded and familiar, Lucas understands balancing big dreams and parental concerns about security. Finally, there’s Calvin, an attractive new classmate Jules finds fixing her abuela’s sink and watching telenovelas with her. He’s a White boy on a different path, one that may not include college. After Jules posts part of her “Untitled Teen Love Story” to the StoriedZone website, a user going by Happily Ever Drafter reaches out, requesting to collaborate on future entries. Jules is consumed by her efforts to identify this mystery co-author with whom she feels a connection and who might secretly be one of her Romeos. Jules’ immigrant family’s struggles to adapt to inevitable change and loss ring true: Their strengths and vulnerabilities are authentic and compelling. Jules is appealing and believable as the different boys in her life serve as prisms through which she imagines the consequences of different life choices, both her own and her parents’.

An engaging tale of family and identity wrapped up in a sweet rom-com. (Fiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews