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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I stumbled upon this while perusing the 2019 Goodreads Choice Award nominees and I immediately knew I needed it. I ordered it on Amazon and the day it arrived I jumped right in. It absolutely did not disappoint and I blew through it in a single sitting.
I'm not the most experienced Shakespeare reader, though I have read some of his work at the high school and college levels. In high school, I found most of it incredibly difficult to understand and it wasn't until I saw my first stage production in college that I developed a real fondness for it. Seeing the words on stage was a game changer for me, because I could rely on the actors' interpretations and portrayal to provide some much needed context to the long passages. For instance, I had had no idea that the Nurse's long speech in Romeo and Juliet was filled with jokes or that Mercutio is literally the sassiest human alive until I saw it performed.
Much Ado About Mean Girls provided a similar experience because I was so familiar with the story line from seeing the movie a million times that I was able to really easily follow the plot, catch the jokes (some of which were even funnier seeing them written in this style), and enjoy the book. If you are intimidated by Shakespeare and want to practice reading his works, I'd actually recommend this as a starting point. Or if you're already a fan I think you'd really like it. I was able to catch some (though definitely not all) of the hidden references, but you don't need a deep Shakespearean background to enjoy it. It's just a fun time all around and absolutely no complaints here!
I'm not the most experienced Shakespeare reader, though I have read some of his work at the high school and college levels. In high school, I found most of it incredibly difficult to understand and it wasn't until I saw my first stage production in college that I developed a real fondness for it. Seeing the words on stage was a game changer for me, because I could rely on the actors' interpretations and portrayal to provide some much needed context to the long passages. For instance, I had had no idea that the Nurse's long speech in Romeo and Juliet was filled with jokes or that Mercutio is literally the sassiest human alive until I saw it performed.
Much Ado About Mean Girls provided a similar experience because I was so familiar with the story line from seeing the movie a million times that I was able to really easily follow the plot, catch the jokes (some of which were even funnier seeing them written in this style), and enjoy the book. If you are intimidated by Shakespeare and want to practice reading his works, I'd actually recommend this as a starting point. Or if you're already a fan I think you'd really like it. I was able to catch some (though definitely not all) of the hidden references, but you don't need a deep Shakespearean background to enjoy it. It's just a fun time all around and absolutely no complaints here!
This book definitely gets bonus points for its originality! It was certainly weird and yet seemed to work really well. I love this movie & loved the ways its dialogue and plot were adapted- I also really liked the Shakespeare allusions throughout.
The minute I saw this title offered on Netgalley, I put in a request, and I was delighted when it was granted. How could I wait til the release date? It is the book I never knew I always wanted. A hilarious modern movie meets my love of Shakespeare? Perfect! And frankly, it really is kind of perfect. If you've seen Mean Girls, you know the plot (the connection of Much Ado specifically is pretty tenuous). The book seems to follow the movie very closely. So the charm is in the language, and how it brings Mean Girls' plot to life in a whole new light. The author did an excellent job capturing Shakespearean-sounding language, and the characters, in all their catty, shallow glory, were well suited to Shakespearean treatment. I wasn't always sure about how he incorporated quotations from Shakespeare's plays into the work--sometimes they worked better than others. But mostly they worked well, and the author explains some of his rationale for their inclusion in an charming afterward, wherein he also waxes poetical about his gratitude to the women in his life and of his admiration of Tina Fey. Such a refreshing lack of toxic masculine posturing. This was just a wonderful, cheerful way to unwind at the end of the day. If you have come to see some of the problematic racial elements of Tina Fey's style of comedy, you will unfortunately still see them in this story. But that is a critique of the original writing, not of the loving recreation of it in this book. If you enjoy Shakespeare, even without having experienced Mean Girls, I think you could enjoy this. If you've enjoyed both Shakespeare AND Mean Girls, get thee to a bookstore as soon as this is released!
(Thank you Netgalley for letting me read an advanced copy.)
(Thank you Netgalley for letting me read an advanced copy.)
Much Ado about Mean Girls is just about what you'd expect it to be. It's a retelling of the movie Mean Girls written in a Shakespeare-like play format. I didn't study too much Shakespeare, so I can't really measure the writing to his typical writing style. This is a fun little script. I think it'd be great to see performed rather than just reading.
Thanks to NetGalley and Quirk Books for the eARC.
Thanks to NetGalley and Quirk Books for the eARC.
This was another clever adaptation of a modern work into Shakespeare-esque writing. This time merging one of my favorite movies with my favorite Shakespeare play, I loved how he integrated Cady’s inner dialogue and VO into the play. The characters were represented well and the writing was good. I loved this play it was so fun to read.
I can see this being a useful tool to teach kids to understand Shakespeare better! It was entertaining to see the story I know and love be told in such fancy “old time” language 😂
Extremely creative and funny, but not one I'll be recommending. Very impressive writing skills, and I'm sure it was really difficult to write, but it was also difficult to stay focused and read for a solid hour. I have a decent understanding and respect for Shakespeare, but I think I have a little bit of a trigger problem with him after two semesters of cram-reading his plays and sonnets. This would be a great coffee table book, but I wouldn't recommend reading it like you would any other book. I think people with a better attention span than me might be able to do that though.
Me ha gustado y me ha hecho mucha gracia pero la verdad es que es un libro para leerse de cuando en cuando e igual no entero, para reírse un rato. Aún así, si eres fanses de Mean Girls lo recomiendo