2015 Reading Challenge [Closed] discussion

I'll go with the crazy romance and drama Romeo and Juliet for this week. I never read Shakespeare before and it's a big classic, so I hope the writing will be nice enough.

I've never read Romeo and Juliet, but I read two Shakespeare plays at school and they were quite difficult to read (of course our teacher chose the un-annotated old-English version). I wish you good luck! ;)

I absolutely love Shakespeare! I have his complete works at home...well, about 3 different copies of it anyways. Once you get over the frustration of looking up some words that you don't know, it's really quite beautiful writing.

I survived! I read the translation as I understand nothing in the old english (except "thou") :p

Maybe I would have enjoyed it better if I didn't already know the story, if the romance was not a "one dance and 2 sentences and we'll be in love forever" and if the characters were not all overacting (ok, I know, it's a play). Juliet was more likable than what I expected and pretty smart too at some points, which was a pleasant surprise.
I'll try to rewatch the movie or to see if there's a video of the play online, I prefer to watch theater than to read it!

I chose this for this week, too. And, same thing, I think I would have liked it more if I didn't know the story beforehand.

What I did like from reading the play over movie adaptations or theater was that it was very obvious that Romeo is flaky when it comes to women. He loved Rosalind first for goodness sake.

I love Shakespeare, but absolutely hate his romances. This was the first play of his that I read in Grade 9. Even then, as a flaky teen, Romeo seemed to be too flighty, and unmanly. Now Macbeth, or Cesar, those are fun reads.

Anastasia wrote: "I love Shakespeare, but absolutely hate his romances. This was the first play of his that I read in Grade 9. Even then, as a flaky teen, Romeo seemed to be too flighty, and unmanly. Now Macbeth, or..."

I'm the same, I'm a huge fan of his other works but I've always hated Romeo and Juliet. I read it in school when I was about 11 and I just couldn't get on board with it and I didn't like either of the main characters. We also watched the movie with Leo and I still hated it. The same year, we read Much Ado About Nothing and I absolutely adored that one. I thought it was much better and the relationships developed in a much more realistic way.

Ok, at some point, I'll try another one as R&J doesn't seem the most popular :)

Zaz wrote: "Ok, at some point, I'll try another one as R&J doesn't seem the most popular :)"

I suggest Macbeth or Hamlet. I had those two in high school and they made me adore Shakespeare.