Reviews with content warning for Child death - La Semilla de la Bruja / Hag-Seed

Despite never having read Shakespeare’s The Tempest and with no real desire to either, I do think this was a very good (re)telling. For a quick plot summary, in Hag-Seed we follow the main character of Felix who was the artist director at a theatre I believe but his assistant orchestrates a coup leaving him lost with the only company being the ghost/hallucination of his recently deceased daughter Miranda - from reviews and as the book develops it’s apparent this is the fate of one of mcs of the original play, Prospero. Years later he gets a chance to enact his revenge on those who ousted him with the help of actors in his current play who are prisoners… because he took up the position teaching literacy to inmates at a local prison and each year he gets them to put on a Shakespearean play and this year is obviously The Tempest. Like Prospero he starts to become obsessed with getting his revenge and other things happen too but that’s all I’ll say.

What I think I loved most about this book was how Felix got the prisoners, who each had their own personality btw, to get involved with the text and relate it to themselves. The analysis of the character of Caliban was very interesting, he’s clearly a baddie and most of them wanted to play him because they too had been viewed in a negative light given their circumstances, upbringing and the like so the humanising of this this character was rather insightful. I guess trying to see things from different POVs is helpful too despite it being hard sometimes and this message can certainly be applied in other aspects of life. Being set in a prison I think was very clever by Atwood and allows for conversions to be made both within and outside of the book about the role of leisure-based activities in such environments, should criminals just be punished or is reinvigorating one’s mental, emotional and creative brain beneficial for retribution and future rehabilitation? I think the latter. I also appreciated how the characters in the book were in for mid-low crimes that many people could so easily get caught up in so you can relate to them more unlike serial killers for example. The way the inmates/actors fully immersed themselves in the story and shedding a contemporary light on it was fantastic with elements of rap for example, the after stories for particular characters linking it to current events like climate change and bringing interesting thoughts to what old William was actually talking about at times too.

I don’t think there was anything particularly bad about this book and I would certainly recommend it. It’s not a top rating purely because the story wasn’t fully to my taste or my preferred genre I guess but that being said I am intrigued to maybe check out another in the series of Shakespeare retellings. I listened to the audiobook narrated by R.H. Thomson and I’d definitely recommend this version, you can clearly tell when he’s doing different characters, it’s clear, entertaining and very bingeable.

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kathi_hoehne's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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taylorjai's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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kananineko's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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starla's review against another edition

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funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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conspystery's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I had no idea what to expect with this book; I didn't even know what it was about when I picked it up at the recommendation of a friend, and I'm not too familiar with The Tempest so I wasn't sure how I would feel about this retelling. I LOVED it. The characters were charming when they needed to be and questionable when the narrative called for it, and the book presents them as such with an absolutely delightful, matter-of-fact, and almost ironic tone. The premise was super interesting and I really think it followed through to the end. Also, I listened to the audiobook version of this, and the narrator's performance added SO much to the story. I really liked this book!

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asourceoffiction's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

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? Yes

4.0

I love Margaret Atwood. I've never read a book of hers I didn't love. And what's amazing is how incredibly different all her stories are. Here, for instance, we have a revenge story set in the backdrop of a unique staging of The Tempest. I like Shakespeare but I'm a bit of a novice, and I was grateful for the reminder of the play's plot at the end of this book.

Prospero is a sorceror who spends 12 years in exile with his daughter Miranda, plotting revenge. Felix chooses his prison, but he similarly waits 12 years for vengeance while becoming increasingly haunted by the memory of his own Miranda, who died when she was far too young.

The way the characters and story mimic those in the play is so clever, and I especially loved the climax where we see how the inmates of Fletcher Correctional embody their own parts to put Felix's plan into action. There's something oddly heartwarming about the way they all come together in revenge.

At the end we get to hear the inmates' theories on what happened to each character after the events of the play, and I realised that I'd been studying The Tempest along with them. I loved it!

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