You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

19k reviews for:

Hamnet

Maggie O'Farrell

4.19 AVERAGE

dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I love the way Maggie O’Farrell writes and creates such beautiful imagery, but this book fell a bit flat for me in comparison to The Marriage Portrait. Although there are sad parts to this book, it didn’t really hit my feelings in the way her other books have. It didn’t have the same intensity and felt more description-heavy than plot-heavy.
Still a beautifully written book, but not my favourite of hers.
emotional reflective sad fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I enjoyed the story, the description. But fun fact, I’ve never read Hamlet so in hindsight an important piece of the picture. I debated reading it because of that but it was on so many best of lists! Still good.
emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
emotional 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: Complicated

i wasn’t super into this book at first, it took me a while to get into it. but i think the writing is really good and the descriptions are great i could really picture most of the book and by the end i was hooked- i feel like you can really tell it’s good writing when you start to feel for the characters in what they’re feeling, each one felt like a real person and i love that

It took about 240 pages for this story to really grab me. And eventually, it lost me again. It's a beautifully written book, but somehow it just didn't do it for me.
emotional reflective 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: Complicated

Not so much a review as a preface, I feel as though this book is more commonly advertised/describes as a book about the life of Shakespeare and his family. After buying this I found the idea to put me off thinking it would be too hard to read and not the kind of entertainment I favour, but in fact not once in the book are the words ‘William’ or ‘Shakespeare’ so much as mentioned. Instead he is often referred to as things such as, ‘the gloves maker’s son’ or ‘the Latin tutor’. Instead it is a story of family and loss and how people deal with that loss, a breaking down of communication as well as so much more. Again it’s a story about life that I found myself loving so much. I think anyone could relate to this story and the relationships with it, so if you’ve been putting it off this is your sign to pick it up.