Scan barcode
A review by casbah
The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters
4.0
When I first heard "1920s YA Hamlet retelling with a mixed race girl as the lead", I was like, praying to the spirit of William Shakespeare for this book to be good. Spirit William Shakespeare delivered. Beautiful Hamlet remix! Mixed race girl! Gay people! Ghosts! Running around dramatically in the woods! Not brushing old timey politics under the rug for the sake of the aesthetic and historical flavor and instead making those atrocious politics the point upon which the entire plot hinges! It is all the things I love.
It follows the plot of Hamlet loosely for about the first third of the book before it stops pulling its punches and goes way off the deep end in the best way possible. Hanalee was both Hamlet and deeply not Hamlet and that makes her mighty. Her friends were well-drawn (Fleur is a decent Horatio, an unassuming witness, and I want a billion stories about Mildred), her town very court of Elsinore, the tone of the book very Shakespearean tragedy, but with occasional moments of hope and love. Loved it. Enjoyed it. I don't know if this was an actually good book but this book was good to me and I will probably read it again.
It follows the plot of Hamlet loosely for about the first third of the book before it stops pulling its punches and goes way off the deep end in the best way possible. Hanalee was both Hamlet and deeply not Hamlet and that makes her mighty. Her friends were well-drawn (Fleur is a decent Horatio, an unassuming witness, and I want a billion stories about Mildred), her town very court of Elsinore, the tone of the book very Shakespearean tragedy, but with occasional moments of hope and love. Loved it. Enjoyed it. I don't know if this was an actually good book but this book was good to me and I will probably read it again.