rosemouthed 's review for:

Henry Henry by Allen Bratton

2.5

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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i kept reading this because i wanted to get the moment where something would wow me, and there…just wasn’t one, and then i finished the book. this is a modern queer retelling of the shakespearean henriad, and while that’s usually enough for me, i just couldn’t get into the story deeper than just a surface level. it kind of reads like the american version of skins, which isn’t a great connection to draw lol. there is a lot going on: the main character hal is in an incestuous relationship with his father that stems from childhood abuse, all the while his father is at ends with the fact that hal is unabashedly gay and honestly, a bit of a mess. he has younger siblings, but no one knows what’s been happening to hal, and he thinks that because of the way that he is, no one would believe him if he said something anyway. you’d think with that being the heart of the book’s subject matter that i would have felt something stronger, but nope.