Reviews

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

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fflur_jones's review against another edition

4.0

A stunning novel. The plot itself is not very action driven so took me a while to get into it but this works well in the context of the book. The real standout of this book is the writing. O'Farrell captures the world so beautifully through her words (one of my favourite sentences was when she described plums as having "red gold jackets near to bursting with sweetness"). Agnes' and other characters' grief is so vivid that for most of the book your heart aches for what is inevitably going to happen and then for all that has happened once it takes place.
If you're looking for an action driven story I wouldn't recommend but if you want to read pages and pages of exquisite writing this is definitely the book for you!

fantasynovel's review against another edition

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3.0

beautiful but super fucking boring

lindsayaunderwood's review against another edition

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4.0

Trigger warning for loss of a child.

I really loved this female perspective and reimagined idea of Shakespeare’s life. I’m no Bill expert, but this was a very interesting concept!

rossgr's review against another edition

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5.0

I fell so in love with this book so fast. A historical fiction, completely sidelining one of the most studied male authors to focus on his intelligent, kind and supernatural (!!) wife's experience? Yes please! Could not put this one down, and was left with such a yearning for the comfort of this story once I had to. Love love love.