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A review by lisabee
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
She writes extraordinarily well at the sentence level. It is a pleasure to read of the places Agnes walks, and her interactions with others.
At the story level, I am unhappy and confused. Too many strands begun and taken nowhere. It looks like she took an official biography and fleshed out descriptions and little acts without actually creating a cohesive story of the "this is what happened and why it happened and how people changed as a result" variety. In this vein, the end is abrupt, and actually not really the end of the story we read. It seems to me the end of a different story, one about Shakespeare and why he wrote "Hamlet", which is only a side-plot in what is really a description of Agnes' life as a string of events without a great deal of meaning.
And why, oh, why was the supernatural element necessary? It just made it all ridiculous.Was her interminable grief about losing her son, or about not seeing the future clearly this one time? .
At the story level, I am unhappy and confused. Too many strands begun and taken nowhere. It looks like she took an official biography and fleshed out descriptions and little acts without actually creating a cohesive story of the "this is what happened and why it happened and how people changed as a result" variety. In this vein, the end is abrupt, and actually not really the end of the story we read. It seems to me the end of a different story, one about Shakespeare and why he wrote "Hamlet", which is only a side-plot in what is really a description of Agnes' life as a string of events without a great deal of meaning.
And why, oh, why was the supernatural element necessary? It just made it all ridiculous.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death and Abandonment