Just Juliet - Charlotte Reagan

Synopsis:

Juliet represents the road less travelled. Will Lena take it?
Lena Newman is 17, her best friend’s a cheerleader, her boyfriend’s a football player, and as far as everyone is concerned, her life is sorted. But that’s before she befriends the new girl. Juliet is confident, slightly damaged, drop-dead gorgeous and a lesbian.

Lena realizes that her interest goes beyond just friendship. She sets off on a path of self-discovery where the loyalty of those closest to her will be tested.

Review:

(copy provided by the publisher for an honest review.)

Just Juliet follows Lena, a senior in high school and pretty satisfied with life: she has a boyfriend who’s sweet, has friends she loves and unproblematic parents. But at 17 years old she's in a relationship that isn't exactly thrilling even though her other half is a football player, the romantic feelings are nil void mostly on her part. She simply thinks he's too nice for what she deserves.

Then Juliet comes along, she's tall, beautiful and artistic. Lena finds herself quickly, completely preoccupied with her and she cant understanding why. As their friendship grows, she begins to realise that she is attracted and borderline obsessed with Juliet. Never having questioned her sexuality before, and only having dated boys before, Lena goes through a period of confusion, trying to make sense of her feelings. She researches the topic and confides in her new gay friend, Scott. At the end of this journey, Lena discovers and learns to accept she is Bisexual.

Just Juliet  is not only about self discovery, but the struggles of "coming out". It deals with a variety of situations ranging from love and acceptance to physical end emotional abuse, drug abuse, loss of loves ones. Reagan does a wonderful job of including a range of real-life struggles for homosexual and bisexual teens without straying from the story or bogging it down.

I feel bad that Lena's parents are always too busy to spend time with her, that they would much rather work all the time instead of cherish their time with their daughter who's growing up quickly. However Mr James, Juliet's father was really a parent figure anyone would ever want, caring, accepting, utterly brilliant at being both cool and a responsible human. like what else could you want as a parental figure?

I fell in love with each character that played a main part in the story, from the start I could see how great Juliet and Lena would be together, they seemed to instantly click. I felt like if they were real people who were in my life, I'd be drawn to them, they seem like they would be great people. As for Quin I could instantly feel that he was going to be either a huge jerk or over protective, turns out he can be a little of both. Best friend Lacey kind of got on my nerves a little, it wasn't anything about her part in the story I just had a feeling she was the typical cheerleader chick, goby and way to overpowering to anyone who isn't a cheerleader. I felt she sort of always felt the need to be one above everyone else or be really flashy.For Lena's other friends whom she sits with each lunchtime were nice characters and although not a huge part of the story, they were helping the storyline progress and it was nice to see more than just one friend all the way through. To see Lena meet new people and develop a friendship with them was actually beautiful to witness, it just felt like that should be how every friendship should form and survive.

The ending of the book really blew my emotions way out of line, I mean by the end I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, run up and down the street doing both? I mean it was that good. I did think the ending was going to be a bombshell of a ending but it was like putting a bath bomb into a bath, slowly fizzling out completely, slow enough to cherish its beauty. Like for real people, I'm not even sure the bath bomb explanation worked out but I'm sticking with it.

Defiantly a 5/5 for this book, definitely worth getting, its such a pleasant read and really doesn't take long to get through. loved it from cover to cover.