Lizzie the Librarian Reads Literature

One of my reading goals this year is to re-read some old favorites and see if they still hit the way they once did. I'm looking at the last twelve years and selecting my top book of the year for each, which means that I'll be re-reading one per month for all of 2025.  For February, I re-read  Still Star Crossed by Melinda Taub (my top book of 2014).  Still Star Crossed  is set after the events of  Romeo and Juliet  and imagines what might have happened to the famous family feud of Montagues and Capulets once the lovers are dead. It focuses on the characters of Rosaline, Juliet's cousin, and Benvolio, Romeo's cousin.  I discovered Still Star Crossed at the public library when I was eighteen and in my last semester of high school. My first job was at the library where I shelved books for sixteen hours a week. This book drew my attention in the young adult section and I was instantly intrigued. Romeo and Juliet has always been my least favorite Shakespear...

Even if you aren't a fan of musicals, you'd probably recognize at least one of the songs from Rodgers and Hammerstein's first production Oklahoma! . Opening on Broadway in 1943, it went on to change the face of American theater and became one of the most celebrated and performed musicals in history. It tells the tempestuous love story of Curly McLain and Laurey Williams at the turn of the century when the Oklahoma territory was on the cusp of becoming a state. Curly is a young, hot cowboy who wants to take farm girl Laurey on a date to the nearby dance. Laurey decides instead to go with farm hand Jud Fry (we'll talk about him in a moment). Chaos, dancing, and accidental murder ensue.  Less well-known is the play that Rodgers and Hammerstein based their musical on, Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs. Essentially, it tells the exact same story but with less plot points and dancing. Surprisingly there's almost the same amount of singing. Even though I am very familiar...