So apparently being critically acclaimed and award winning still doesn’t make a good book, even when it tries this hard. “Every life has its kernel, its hub, its epicentre, from which everything flows out, to which everything returns.” Since this overwritten and overwrought book has not yet met an adjective or a metaphor that it didn’t like and immediately adopt (usually in neat sets of threes) to add to the neverending list of descriptors purpling its melodramatic prose, I’ll throw out a few...

2020 Best Books of the Year [#02 of 11]Quite often, the Women's Prize for Fiction longlist contains one book more fanciful than the rest. The rogue book in the lineup usually has unique qualities that manifest either as robust lyricism or as strange yet scintillating content. Occasionally, the longlist offers a book with both qualities (think 2017 Women's Prize longlist nominee, The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill).It's quite possible Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is this year's rogue conten...

This book and I are enemies, foes, nemeses. I did not dnf it on principle to know if my loathing was justified till the end, finale, conclusion. (Spoiler alert - it was.)Agnes is the wisewoman, oracle, witch, fay, elf, sorceress. I was waiting for her to go to the ocean one night and turn into a selkie and swim away. But alas. :(She is, she is, she is the ultimate “not like other girls” girl, woman, Other. Shakespeare, latin tutor, husband (it’s a very smart decision not to name him, you see) te...

Hamnet was wonderful. My favorite Maggie O’Farrell novel, so far!It grabbed me from the start....and I wasn’t expecting it to.I really enjoyed it — I can’t imagine any reader who wouldn’t like it.Not to worry if you’re Shakespeare-challenged. I mean ‘really’ don’t worry. (I did).... needlessly. The title seems a little misleading- but for those who haven’t read this yet....I’ll say no more.Great book to go in blind. Not only does it not disappoint— it’s SURPRISINGLY MAGNIFICENT.....The writing i...

I have to admit that I was a little nervous going into this one for two reasons. I sometimes have a hard time with fictionalized accounts of real people. I’m always questioning how realistic they are and at the same time having to keep reminding myself that they’re fiction. Perhaps because not much is known about Shakespeare’s wife Anne or Agnes, her birth name, as she is called in the novel, that I found the imagining to be so captivating. Even though I still wondered how much might be true, O’...

If you’re a Shakespeare fan, you’ll love this moving novel about how his personal life might’ve influenced the writing of one of his most famous plays. O’Farrell has built her story on two facts we know to be true about “The Bard”: his son Hamnet died at the age of 11, and a couple years later, Shakespeare wrote a tragedy called Hamlet. I especially enjoyed reading about his wife, Anne, who is imagined here as an almost supernatural figure.

Unpopular opinion aheadI had no desire to read Hamnet when I first heard of it. Shakespeare gets married, they have kids, one dies, he writes "Hamlet". Nope, not interested. Then several of my friends wrote amazing reviews and reeled me in. I was still hesitant but thought, Why not? Just give it a try and DNF if it's not interesting.Let me tell you. In the beginning I was mesmerized by Maggie O'Farrell's writing. The descriptions made everything so vivid, the setting and characters leapt off the...

“What is given may be taken away, at any time. Cruelty and devastation wait for you around corners, inside coffers, behind doors: they can leap out at you at any moment, like a thief or brigand.”Without a doubt, this is a brilliantly imagined novel written by one who is quickly becoming a favorite author. I’m afraid I’ll have to explain myself for not singing its praises as effusively as I would have liked, but I’ll get to that later. There are a lot more positives to this than there are negativ...

An emotionally-charged novel about grief after the death of a child. It takes a master author to create a story with scant background documents that goes deep, deep into a reader's heart. I admire the worlds Ms O'Farrell created of Agnes, of her childhood, life with her husband, and of motherly love and pain...Some scenes were so moving that I felt physical sensation while reading them. For a reader to experience a novel in this way is a gift from the author.

There's an incredibly powerful and poignant moment in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall when Cromwell's two young daughters die suddenly of the plague. You sense that scene might have had a profound influence on the birth of this novel. Its central event is a plague death. Like Mantel's novels, it's written in the present tense, it's rich with detailed description and it takes a famous figure from history as its protagonist. Where Mantel was daring and adventurous with her imaginative identification wit...

Once upon a time, I said I would rate this book depending on how memorable it is.Today, when I looked at the next review I had to write in my line up, I forgot I'd even read this book.So it's going to be a 2.5 star situation from me.I don't read historical fiction very often, because the very IDEA of living in a time before showers and readily accessible desserts and the right to vote is more disturbing to me than any horror novel, but something about this book piqued my fancy. Maybe it's that w...

wow. this story is something else. i picked this up on a whim and i do not regret it.very early on, i thought this book would be too ‘description’ heavy for my personal liking. there are paragraphs upon paragraphs of very detailed description, so i was unsure if i would connect with this kind of narrative (especially because its written in present tense). but slowly, and ever surely, i became completely absorbed by the end. it definitely creeped up on me.what i love most about this, though, is h...

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTIONGrief fills the room up of my absent child,Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,Remembers me of all his gracious parts,Stuffs out his vacant garments with his formThen, have I reason to be fond of grief? —William Shakespeare (The Life and Death of King John)No one knows what caused the death of Hamnet Shakespeare in 1596, at the tender age of eleven. Likewise, little is known about his mother Agnes (ak...

I loved this story!This is a work of fiction about William Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway, their family, and the death of their only son Hamnet who died at 11 yrs of age.It’s the story of a marriage, and grief....of what life was like in 16th century England in the time of the Black Death plague.It was a sensual, beautiful and magical story.The heart of the book is Hamnet’s mother and you feel everything along right with her!

’Remember me.’ Words fail me, or at least words that would be worthy enough of this look into another time, a time that has an almost uncanny resemblance, in some ways, to the current plague that has fallen upon us. But it is also so much more than that, as it exposes the grief that accompanies the loss of the life of a child, and how quickly, and invisibly this plague travels from one place, one creature to another again and again over a short period of time, to land on an innocent person, a

At last, I am baptized into the O’Farrell world. And what an awesome discovery.I was a little nervous picking this one up when I heard Shakespeare. I didn’t think I wanted to read this, but holy moly, I would have missed out on this exquisite writing and fabulous, yet heart wrenching story. This is a remarkable tale of love.. Of man and woman and parents and children. A devastating death of a twin at the centre. The division that comes with loss. And a new appreciation for that that speech I was...

Everyone seems to love this but... not for me. Maybe take my opinion with a grain of salt since I'm notoriously picky with historical fiction, and especially ones which fictionalise real people and events. Maybe I just went into it with the wrong expectations given it's marketed as "the heart-stopping story behind Shakespeare's Hamlet" and it's .... really not that. The story never gripped me. it boasts itself as the illuminating story behind Shakespeare's Hamlet, but the links Maggie O'Farrell