Scan barcode
helena_sp_07's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Misogyny, Physical abuse, Child abuse, and Death of parent
Minor: Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Chronic illness, Violence, and Blood
ntvenessa's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
"I am dead:
Thou livest;
... draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story"
Hamlet, Act V, Scene II
Stunning.
Graphic: Child death, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Emotional abuse
Minor: Addiction, Alcohol, Medical content, Miscarriage, Violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Infertility, Classism, and Infidelity
lena_and_her_books's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Sexual content, Grief, Pregnancy, Child death, and Death
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical content, Child abuse, Cursing, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, and Blood
honeycrispp's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Terminal illness, Child death, Grief, Confinement, Death, Pregnancy, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Death of parent, Infidelity, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, Blood, and Xenophobia
Minor: Animal death and Gaslighting
terrik_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Death, Physical abuse, and Infidelity
Minor: Animal death and Animal cruelty
balfies's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Child death, Grief, and Death
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Blood
writtenontheflyleaves's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
🌟🌟🌟🌟
💀 The plot: Stratford, 1596. An 11-year-old boy is desperately trying to find help for his sister, who has fallen ill. His mother is out of reach on the edge of town, his father even further away in London. No one knows yet that this boy will not survive the week - or that three years later, his father will give his name to one of the most famous plays ever written.
Hamnet is a feat of imagination from start to finish. It's vivid, it's moving. It's wildly overwritten at times - a hand movement or journey from room to room might take a full page - but it does something I think is really hard to do: it brings a famous person from history fully to life. Shakespeare is a character we know little about while having a huge idea of him in our collective consciousness, and O'Farrell writes him as just a man. A son, a husband, a father. A Latin tutor. Someone real, who you can feel for.
The result is a book that feels like a look into history with a lower-case "h". O'Farrell's not so much interested in the origins of Hamlet the play or in Shakespeare's artistic genius, but in the profound grief its name suggests for Hamnet the boy, and in helping her reader live that loss alongside his family. It's a novel that is both much bigger and much smaller than the question of how or why Shakespeare wrote, and I think that's why I liked it.
🦉 Read it for a complex portrait of a Midlands hero (big up Billy Shakes), deeply-felt characterisation, and if you want a nice big cry.
🚫 Avoid it if you find excessive description or a slow pace exhausting (I love a nice slow novel, but this tested me at points!) - also if you're not in a place to read about child death or pregnancy at the moment.
Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
mscalls's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Bullying, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Physical abuse
kizzy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, and Grief
Minor: Blood and Suicidal thoughts