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azyef's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Terminal illness, and Grief
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gore, and Infidelity
Minor: Animal death, Sexual content, and Colonisation
hanvshka's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This book was beautifully tragic. It's about family, life, death, grief and so much more.
It took me a bit to get used to the overall tone of the story, but once that happened, I fell in love with it. Parts of this story will stay with me for a long time, even after having put the book away.
While this is a story inspired by Shakespeare's life, he is not the focus of the story and the author makes it clear by never mentioning his name once, which I thought of as a pretty neat detail.
It took me a bit to get used to the overall tone of the story, but once that happened, I fell in love with it. Parts of this story will stay with me for a long time, even after having put the book away.
While this is a story inspired by Shakespeare's life, he is not the focus of the story and the author makes it clear by never mentioning his name once, which I thought of as a pretty neat detail.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Domestic abuse
alrauna's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Terminal illness
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: Alcoholism
bunnyreads2's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I enjoyed it but it took me a while to really get into it and more importantly, to be able to follow which character was which. Granted it’s probably an effect from listening to the audiobook while doing house chores, but still, not having clear pauses between different POVs made it pretty blurry at times. But still, the history and literary nerd in me really enjoyed exploring this part of Shakespeare’s life through this fiction setting. And the feminist in me enjoyed the attention being centered not on Shakespeare himself but his wife, kids and extended family.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Terminal illness, and Grief
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Sexism, and Violence
Minor: Abandonment
aeriecircus's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Terminal illness, and Grief
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Death of parent
christinecc's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This would have been three stars because of some stuff I'll get into below, but I shed way too many tears in the second half to withhold the fourth star.
The book's premise is as follows: this is a look at the family of how a young Latin tutor (unnamed) falls in loved with a slightly older young woman named Agnes, their different upbringings, their eventual marriage, their children (an eldest daughter and a set of twins, boy & girl), and how they lose one of the twins to the bubonic plague, followed by a heartrending depiction of grief.
Except said Latin tutor is, as many of you will guess, our own Bard of Avon: William Shakespeare. And the child who dies (this is on the first page, I'm not spoiling anything) is Shakespeare's son named Hamnet.
The writing is ridiculously good, as is the pacing and the decision to alternate between scenes in the "present" (where Bill is off in London being a theatre star and Agnes is raising the kids in Stratford) and the "past" (which shows us the younger years of the couple and their relationships with their parents, mixed in with their unusual courtship).
The family relationships are the real gold here, brought to life by O'Farrell's prose. I love how everyone feels connected and invested in the other characters' well-being. Agnes has a horrible stepmother (Joan) but a decent, heart-warming relationship with her brother and even her half-siblings.
Meanwhile, the Latin Tutor is slowly suffocating in his home, stuck in Startford, always under the weight of his abusive and malignant father, John the glover. We also get to see the tutor's relationship with his brothers and sisters, and his mother's perfectly reasonable if contrary views of his marriage and choice of wife. No one feels like a cartoon. The people are commonplace, the love and sadness appears by the fistful rather than the epic ton, and that's what brings the story to life.
Ok so my main complaint is about Agnes, more commonly known as Anne Hathaway (Mrs. Shakespeare). She gets the "I'm not like Other Medieval Women" treatment, as if she's the only woman in the world to use herbal remedies or... (checks notes) give birth in the woods? Alone? (That wasn't in the herbal manual, what are you doing, Agnes??) (To be fair, the woods episode comes back and makes more sense during her second pregnancy, and it packs more of a punch than it deserves. Quite a punch, in fact.)
Look, all I'm saying is, I'm not a big believer in underestimating the past, and the Victorians really did a number on how we perceive the middle ages. Medieval people were smart, they had some unexpectedly useful remedies, and they did know how to give birth relatively safely... more safely than wandering into the woods alone, at any rate. No need to make Agnes "the fey woman," she's already interesting enough as it is. And lucky for O'Farrell, her prose carries the overused trope to safety.
The second half is devastating. I cried a lot. I can only ask that you steel yourself for the heartbreaking image of a family crumbling under the weight of a child's death. It is not easy. It is, however, masterfully written. And somehow, keeping Shakespeare nameless throughout was the perfect choice. The Bard has never been more human.
Recommended if you enjoy stories about family, grief, and the need to keep living.
The book's premise is as follows: this is a look at the family of how a young Latin tutor (unnamed) falls in loved with a slightly older young woman named Agnes, their different upbringings, their eventual marriage, their children (an eldest daughter and a set of twins, boy & girl), and how they lose one of the twins to the bubonic plague, followed by a heartrending depiction of grief.
Except said Latin tutor is, as many of you will guess, our own Bard of Avon: William Shakespeare. And the child who dies (this is on the first page, I'm not spoiling anything) is Shakespeare's son named Hamnet.
The writing is ridiculously good, as is the pacing and the decision to alternate between scenes in the "present" (where Bill is off in London being a theatre star and Agnes is raising the kids in Stratford) and the "past" (which shows us the younger years of the couple and their relationships with their parents, mixed in with their unusual courtship).
The family relationships are the real gold here, brought to life by O'Farrell's prose. I love how everyone feels connected and invested in the other characters' well-being. Agnes has a horrible stepmother (Joan) but a decent, heart-warming relationship with her brother and even her half-siblings.
Meanwhile, the Latin Tutor is slowly suffocating in his home, stuck in Startford, always under the weight of his abusive and malignant father, John the glover. We also get to see the tutor's relationship with his brothers and sisters, and his mother's perfectly reasonable if contrary views of his marriage and choice of wife. No one feels like a cartoon. The people are commonplace, the love and sadness appears by the fistful rather than the epic ton, and that's what brings the story to life.
Ok so my main complaint is about Agnes, more commonly known as Anne Hathaway (Mrs. Shakespeare). She gets the "I'm not like Other Medieval Women" treatment, as if she's the only woman in the world to use herbal remedies or... (checks notes) give birth in the woods? Alone? (That wasn't in the herbal manual, what are you doing, Agnes??) (To be fair, the woods episode comes back and makes more sense during her second pregnancy, and it packs more of a punch than it deserves. Quite a punch, in fact.)
Look, all I'm saying is, I'm not a big believer in underestimating the past, and the Victorians really did a number on how we perceive the middle ages. Medieval people were smart, they had some unexpectedly useful remedies, and they did know how to give birth relatively safely... more safely than wandering into the woods alone, at any rate. No need to make Agnes "the fey woman," she's already interesting enough as it is. And lucky for O'Farrell, her prose carries the overused trope to safety.
The second half is devastating. I cried a lot. I can only ask that you steel yourself for the heartbreaking image of a family crumbling under the weight of a child's death. It is not easy. It is, however, masterfully written. And somehow, keeping Shakespeare nameless throughout was the perfect choice. The Bard has never been more human.
Recommended if you enjoy stories about family, grief, and the need to keep living.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death
Minor: Child abuse and Domestic abuse
thenoceurs's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse
hannahhansa's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Slow, too much indirect speech, but still interesting to discover the story of Shakespeare’s family. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the characters’ thoughts and feeling and how they process tragedy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Terminal illness, and Pregnancy
lumenella's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death and Grief
Minor: Domestic abuse
littlegretty's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
This book is beautifully written and O'Farrell masterfully crafts a narrative that makes you fall in love with each character on its own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Grief
Moderate: Sexual content