A review by puddinontheritz
The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

This is a solid addition to the inspired-by-Hamlet canon (which I am reading many of now). The spin of genre and setting is very creative, and I appreciate how Lui holds Hamlet as inspiration and moves plot and characters to new places. 

One of the blurbs says the book is ambitious, and I would agree. I enjoyed the book, but I say so o relooking some clunky aspects of the it. The book feels like an unedited debut novel with loads of potential, but like it wasn’t challenged to expand and re-examine itself at all before publishing.

1. The relationships: the Felicia and Hayden relationship has a few flashbacks that give us dimension to the characters interactions. Being a closed box, these were necessary to give some context to the characters. It felt like a miss not to delve into the the parental relationships of Hayden’s more. And I don’t believe the format limits this. We get these flashbacks from Felicia’s narrative (for Hayden and her dad), but there could have been another kind of record that gave us these for the Linchfields, imo the letters were more plot-driven than character driven.
2. The dialogue: It needed a bit of reduction, and a little more conciseness and point. The dialogue did not elevate the characters as much as they should have.  
3. Sense of place: Elsinore could have been setup stronger. Being that we jump into story straightaway, we are missing more about the building which is a character itself. I fetI needed a bit more background into how the building was designed and why to make sense of some things, like the hidden labs. 

Overall, the book does decent and is successful is several things. 1) the Horatio and Hayden relationship is acknowledged to be dangerous and seems to spiral Hayden further into madness, but I think Lui pulls of an AI- Human sexual encounter in a real way. 2) This “Gertrude” is the menace, which is not done often (outside of Hamlet’s own head), and I would have only wanted more build around that reveal.
3) it’s always nice when Ophelia makes her own decisions and li es at the end!

Worth the read, is probably more enjoyable if Hamlet is fresh in your mind.