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ceceewing_'s review
4.0
Update 2/28/18: 3.5/5
Have you ever read a book description that feels like it must have been written for you personally? Because that is exactly how I felt after first reading the summary for Nothing Happened. Retelling? Shakespeare? Summer camp? Queer? These are all key words that I look for in the things I read regularly, and somehow it all happens in this book at the same time which is both unbelievable and delightful.
So, Much Ado About Nothing is my all-time favorite play by Shakespeare. I have loved all the versions I have seen and read (well, except the disaster that was the Joss Whedon adaptation, but is it all that surprising that Joss deeply messed up something I love?) and I have been anxious in my search for a version with queer main characters. At long last, I have found one. In this version, we have two main couples: Ben & Bee, and Hana & Claudia.
Hana and Claudia are queer. Hana is opening working on figuring out which label works best for her, bisexual or pansexual, and Claudia is similarly unsure, though she is attracted to women more frequently than men. They are incredibly dramatic, throw themselves into things quickly, and make so much sense as a camp couple that I don't know how I didn't realize before that summer camp was the ONLY place you could set a modern retelling of Much Ado. Bee and Ben are equally ridiculous, though their faults are more in their unwillingness to ever say anything out loud so that they are trapped in a never ending loop of miscommunication. But, like, the fun kind that you have to know is going to happen in a book like this one.
You should know going into this book that you will be encountering a fair amount of cheesiness. People are dramatic! Accusations are made! Secrets go undiscussed! There is so much gossip you almost won't be able to stand it! But, at the center of all of this, is an incredibly faithful retelling that is clearly full of so much passion for these characters and this story. If you have read the play, you will find no surprises, but as a faithful fan I was still smiling at every reveal and worried during every confrontation.
There are certain conventions of this story that work better as a play. The entire ending, for example, is a little hard to pull off in a YA contemporary. And sometimes the cheese does get to be too much. These are the reasons I wound up giving this book a 3.5/5, just because it wasn't a perfect novel. However, every time I opened up my kindle app I would grin because I knew exactly the story I was getting into.
Some other diversity that I didn't mention earlier: Bee and Hana are sisters, and Bee is an adopted member of the family. She is originally from Ethiopia, and that part of their relationship is handled excellently. Hana also deals very closely with depression. She is seeing a therapist and is on medication for the duration of the book. Also! There are a number of background characters who are queer and/or POC!
Honestly, if you go into this book knowing full-well the level of absurdity Shakespeare includes in his comedies, you know the kind of book you're going to get. The plots are sometimes over the top, and everything would work better if occasionally some characters just talked to one another. But if you're looking for something that is going to make you smile for chapters at a time? Something that reminds you of summer, especially summer camp, and all of the drama and romance of a group of teenagers stuck together for weeks at a time? Then this is the book for you.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Ummmmmm wlw in my all time favorite Shakespeare play?????? I would like to thank everyone who ever made this possible and also I would like to cry for a bit.
Have you ever read a book description that feels like it must have been written for you personally? Because that is exactly how I felt after first reading the summary for Nothing Happened. Retelling? Shakespeare? Summer camp? Queer? These are all key words that I look for in the things I read regularly, and somehow it all happens in this book at the same time which is both unbelievable and delightful.
So, Much Ado About Nothing is my all-time favorite play by Shakespeare. I have loved all the versions I have seen and read (well, except the disaster that was the Joss Whedon adaptation, but is it all that surprising that Joss deeply messed up something I love?) and I have been anxious in my search for a version with queer main characters. At long last, I have found one. In this version, we have two main couples: Ben & Bee, and Hana & Claudia.
Hana and Claudia are queer. Hana is opening working on figuring out which label works best for her, bisexual or pansexual, and Claudia is similarly unsure, though she is attracted to women more frequently than men. They are incredibly dramatic, throw themselves into things quickly, and make so much sense as a camp couple that I don't know how I didn't realize before that summer camp was the ONLY place you could set a modern retelling of Much Ado. Bee and Ben are equally ridiculous, though their faults are more in their unwillingness to ever say anything out loud so that they are trapped in a never ending loop of miscommunication. But, like, the fun kind that you have to know is going to happen in a book like this one.
You should know going into this book that you will be encountering a fair amount of cheesiness. People are dramatic! Accusations are made! Secrets go undiscussed! There is so much gossip you almost won't be able to stand it! But, at the center of all of this, is an incredibly faithful retelling that is clearly full of so much passion for these characters and this story. If you have read the play, you will find no surprises, but as a faithful fan I was still smiling at every reveal and worried during every confrontation.
There are certain conventions of this story that work better as a play. The entire ending, for example, is a little hard to pull off in a YA contemporary. And sometimes the cheese does get to be too much. These are the reasons I wound up giving this book a 3.5/5, just because it wasn't a perfect novel. However, every time I opened up my kindle app I would grin because I knew exactly the story I was getting into.
Some other diversity that I didn't mention earlier: Bee and Hana are sisters, and Bee is an adopted member of the family. She is originally from Ethiopia, and that part of their relationship is handled excellently. Hana also deals very closely with depression. She is seeing a therapist and is on medication for the duration of the book. Also! There are a number of background characters who are queer and/or POC!
Honestly, if you go into this book knowing full-well the level of absurdity Shakespeare includes in his comedies, you know the kind of book you're going to get. The plots are sometimes over the top, and everything would work better if occasionally some characters just talked to one another. But if you're looking for something that is going to make you smile for chapters at a time? Something that reminds you of summer, especially summer camp, and all of the drama and romance of a group of teenagers stuck together for weeks at a time? Then this is the book for you.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Ummmmmm wlw in my all time favorite Shakespeare play?????? I would like to thank everyone who ever made this possible and also I would like to cry for a bit.
readitandweep543's review
This book was so important to me as a kid for so many reasons. i remember it being great, although i was a middle schooler 😭.
estanceveyrac's review
4.0
I just can't relate to the setting at all & I'm getting too old for this kind of books I suppose.
ladykaylee's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This was a really cute, queer retelling of my favorite Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing, this time set at a summer camp in Maine, and with Claudia instead of Claudio. The setting was great- it absolutely felt like a summer camp, complete with lots of summer drama. I liked the increased queer and BIPOC representation. The author tried to flesh out all of the characters with more shades of gray than Shakespeare, but that part felt rushed in terms of the plot. Still, it was an enjoyable, quick read.
nabiis's review
3.0
okay so i was really enjoying this up until maybe the last fourth of the book?? the whole conflict was solved way too quickly to be even a little bit realistic. dont get me wrong i was so happy everything was solved and all the people i wanted to end up together did but i feel like it should have taken more time. also this book was somehow too long and too short at the same time.
goosemixtapes's review
3.0
this book is fine. it’s fine. the prose is on the juvenile side of YA; the characters are lovable enough to follow; it's easy to binge-read; i'm still not sure ben's sister needed a POV. it’s more or less a play-by-play of much ado about nothing set at a summer camp, and i picked it up because i adore much ado; still, there's not much new here. beatrice is black and claudio is a lesbian, which is cool, and it’s definitely sweet! but overall this adds very little to the story. some scenes are almost paraphrased from the shakespeare--and if given the choice between shakespeare or a closely-followed shakespearean paraphrase, i’d always rather read the man himself. (particularly in terms of the main couple--ben especially never really hit the proper benedick notes for me.)
that said, i do famously love wlw hero/claudio, even if i think this book could have done more with claudia + the specific self-consciousness of a first gay relationship. still waiting for the day someone writes a f/f beatrice and benedick, but i guess i’ll have to do it my damn self.
(you may be thinking, "max, you keep rating YA books 3 stars. should you just stop reading YA?" to which my answer is that i will always seek out shakespeare retellings regardless of age/genre. they will always entice me. this will never change.)
that said, i do famously love wlw hero/claudio, even if i think this book could have done more with claudia + the specific self-consciousness of a first gay relationship. still waiting for the day someone writes a f/f beatrice and benedick, but i guess i’ll have to do it my damn self.
(you may be thinking, "max, you keep rating YA books 3 stars. should you just stop reading YA?" to which my answer is that i will always seek out shakespeare retellings regardless of age/genre. they will always entice me. this will never change.)
whoaitslei's review
1.0
1.5*
I wanted to like this book so much, I love queer retellings of anything, and the cast was pretty diverse, But this book was very possibly the most boring book I've read all year. I know the book is literally called nothing happened, but this was criminally boring. The book was super fast paced, but somehow it still retained it's blandness. Everything in this book was super rushed from the romance to the general plot of the novel. Not that there's much plot. And that'd fine, but when a book doesn't really have a plot it needs to have really good characters that make the reader care about them in any sense. The character have to be really strong, their arc has to be interesting. AND NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS WERE INTERESTING OR REALISTIC
The characters did not resemble the age they were being portrayed as AT ALL. The main characters were all sixteen plus (except for one I believe). They reminded me of twelve years olds and at most thirteen. When they cursed and talked about sex it made me so uncomfortable because it wasn't really established in my mind that they weren't preteens or early teens. Some of these characters were in college! I just feel so disappointed by this book, I think it could have been good if the book would have spanned out across several summers and was written in a more mature tone. The we could fall in love with the characters (who by the way were indecipherable from each other, all of them having the same tone except for the "villain" of the story). Anyway extremely disappointed.
I wanted to like this book so much, I love queer retellings of anything, and the cast was pretty diverse, But this book was very possibly the most boring book I've read all year. I know the book is literally called nothing happened, but this was criminally boring. The book was super fast paced, but somehow it still retained it's blandness. Everything in this book was super rushed from the romance to the general plot of the novel. Not that there's much plot. And that'd fine, but when a book doesn't really have a plot it needs to have really good characters that make the reader care about them in any sense. The character have to be really strong, their arc has to be interesting. AND NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS WERE INTERESTING OR REALISTIC
The characters did not resemble the age they were being portrayed as AT ALL. The main characters were all sixteen plus (except for one I believe). They reminded me of twelve years olds and at most thirteen. When they cursed and talked about sex it made me so uncomfortable because it wasn't really established in my mind that they weren't preteens or early teens. Some of these characters were in college! I just feel so disappointed by this book, I think it could have been good if the book would have spanned out across several summers and was written in a more mature tone. The we could fall in love with the characters (who by the way were indecipherable from each other, all of them having the same tone except for the "villain" of the story). Anyway extremely disappointed.
sparksofkell's review
5.0
Quite simply, SUPERB!
A fantastic retelling of Much Ado with every moving piece! Bee and Ben are perfect renderings of my favs Beatrice and Benedict!
A fantastic retelling of Much Ado with every moving piece! Bee and Ben are perfect renderings of my favs Beatrice and Benedict!
margaret's review
4.0
This was 110% overdramatic and it's exactly what Shakespeare would have wanted
booksandladders's review
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book and chose to review it. This in no way impacts my opinion.
DNF @ 45%
I was not a fan of how this one started. There were way too many POVs and the story wasn't that intriguing. I didn't like the casual aspects of well this is clearly a thing because we're at camp that weren't given any more detail. This should have been a book I adored - Shakespeare retelling, set at a summer camp, LGBTQ+ romance - but no. It took too long to get anywhere interesting, I don't care "what happened," and the LGBTQ+ romance was so rushed and is going to be overshadowed by the heterosexual one so I really don't care. I couldn't bother finishing but based on the current trajectory, it would have been a 2 star read from me.
DNF @ 45%
I was not a fan of how this one started. There were way too many POVs and the story wasn't that intriguing. I didn't like the casual aspects of well this is clearly a thing because we're at camp that weren't given any more detail. This should have been a book I adored - Shakespeare retelling, set at a summer camp, LGBTQ+ romance - but no. It took too long to get anywhere interesting, I don't care "what happened," and the LGBTQ+ romance was so rushed and is going to be overshadowed by the heterosexual one so I really don't care. I couldn't bother finishing but based on the current trajectory, it would have been a 2 star read from me.