This book is not a retelling of Shakespeare's play, but the creation of a character from hints in the play. Romeo and Juliet serves merely as backdrop, providing recognition fun for the Shakespeare lover, but not essential to enjoyment of the novel. (But I want to reread Romeo and Juliet to see if some of the details were imagined anew or from the play.) 
 The plot held my attention from the opening in the cottage to Angelica's moving to the elegant home across town and through subsequent events. The contrast provides many occasions for comment on class structure without heavy handedness. Knowing the ending did not inhibit my eagerness to see 'what happens next.' The nurse has some hypotheses that make for interesting decisions. 
 The three characters that I enjoyed most were the Nurse, Tybalt and the Nurse's husband (whose name I can't think of at the moment). Also interestingly developed were the Friar and Juliet's father. 
 The one thing I found distracting was an occasional intrusion of actual Shakespearean language in some of the dialog. The line, "A plague on both your houses" worked, but the others not so well.