swaggynikki's review against another edition
God this book was off the walls. I read its inner flap at the library and all I gleaned from it was "modern gay Hamlet retelling" and I thought "why not" and I checked it out, and that elevator pitch is such an understatement that it's almost laughable. It is a Hamlet retelling, and it is set in the modern day, and it is gay, but it definitely not what you're thinking when you here that. It has an interesting take on how to write a neurodivergent character: all the chapters from Ben's (aka Hamlet's) perspective use changes in typeface and font size and other types of formatting to show that something weird is going on in his head, but the rambling word-association structure of his narration (which felt exactly like how it feels to think in my head) probably did a better job of it. My fear in a modern gay Hamlet retelling is that Ophelia's character would get shafted, like a more literary version of bad AO3 characterization, but luckily this adaptation did give her her flowers (literally!). Her twist was unexpected (to me, very bad at predictions) and the book basically did the ideal version of incorporating Horatio as a romantic lead without undercutting Ophelia's importance. I have no idea why the witches from Macbeth were there, but I'm down with their inclusion. But my favorite part of this book is absolutely that it introduced me to the field of the philosophy of physics. I'm writing this a few months after reading the book, and the plot and characters haven't crossed my mind many times since I finished it, but I think about the things Hamlet/Ben says about philosophy of physics regularly. The way he talks about himself, and how he's a neutron star and Horatio is the other neutron star and how his mental state is, like the status of Schrodinger's cat, possibly destroyed beyond return is a little ridiculous sometimes, but that's how any good Hamlet interpretation should be. His moments do sometimes border on silly (I quote "I'm like the sweater from the Weezer song. Unraveling" on a regular basis) but they're also fascinating, and I like how the book wasn't afraid to get really philosophically weird with him. I just wish he was written at a time where he could have known about enmeshed particles.
breebok's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Feels like fanfiction in a bad way. Only finished because it was for a book club. lots of minor pet peeves. Main issues were the characters were all supposedly in their 30s but acted like teenagers, and the main character is constantly referred to as a genius but never said anything I haven’t seen on popsci posts on tumblr in the last ten years.
aecarver's review against another edition
5.0
I closed this book - with tears streaming down my face and all I could say was,
“That was so f***ing good.”
Lyndsay Faye is a master. I have loved all the books I’ve read of hers but this one may be my favorite.
This book is cerebral but full to the bursting with heart. It is funny and tragic, inevitable in a beautiful, achingly sad way. All three of the character’s voices are so unique - not just in tone but literally how it’s presented on the page. I love each of them so differently. I don’t want to say too much because I believe this book should be EXPERIENCED and the best way would be to go in with nothing but the blurb on the back. Faye’s beautiful words will take you the rest of the way.
This is a book that I’m going to have to return to - and I’m sure each time I’ll discover something new about it.
Unquestionably, to me at least, 5 stars.
“That was so f***ing good.”
Lyndsay Faye is a master. I have loved all the books I’ve read of hers but this one may be my favorite.
This book is cerebral but full to the bursting with heart. It is funny and tragic, inevitable in a beautiful, achingly sad way. All three of the character’s voices are so unique - not just in tone but literally how it’s presented on the page. I love each of them so differently. I don’t want to say too much because I believe this book should be EXPERIENCED and the best way would be to go in with nothing but the blurb on the back. Faye’s beautiful words will take you the rest of the way.
This is a book that I’m going to have to return to - and I’m sure each time I’ll discover something new about it.
Unquestionably, to me at least, 5 stars.
canonicallychaotic's review against another edition
5.0
Suffering
something terrible is happening in new york city. ben dane’s father is dead and his mother has married his uncle. he’s enlisted the help of his best friend horatio to help investigate the death, but he and horatio haven’t even seen each other in a year. somewhere else in the city, his ex-fiancée, lia, is creating magical bouquets under the guidance of three mysterious women.
(to quote taylor swift: i think i’ve seen this film before. and i didn’t like the ending.)
the king of infinite space is a retelling of shakespeare’s tragedy of hamlet. but in the way you may have dreamed about while you read it in your high school english classes—let’s give the women actual agency, and make it canonically queer.
i studied hamlet in school, and i would consider it my favorite shakespeare play (although i don’t know it as well as i used to). i loved being able to read this and make connections. to put pieces together, and feel like a scholar. to hear lines that sounded just slightly familiar, and felt like a knowing look shared between friends across a room.
but for the familiarity of the story of hamlet, here i was still absolutely blown away by every choice made by faye. moments left me saying “no, she wouldn’t.” and screaming and crying over interpretative choices made.
it has easily become a new favorite. a book that left me in full sobs. a story of grief—for love lost and love just out of reach. for your parents and for your children. for the life you could have had, and the life you thought you did. a story of magic. a story of fate and time and the multiverse. a story that makes you think—maybe this time.
i talk a lot about rereading books. i love the familiarity of it. but sometimes i reread books because they beg to be reread. they have big reveals that change everything. reveals that say: look back. you should have seen this coming all along. how could you have not seen it?
before even this, i knew early on listening to king of infinite space on audiobook that this would be a book I would want to return to because of the magnetic and gorgeous prose. my fingers itch to highlight words i remember hearing. and in ben’s pov, there are stylistic fonts that show his thought processes. while i listened to the audio, i would often times open the book to flip through just to see how it was written. sometime soon i will give king of infinite space the full reread it deserves.
(and then—maybe this time.)
cw: death, suicide attempt and ideation, drug use and abuse, alcoholism, knife and gun violence, arson
“time. time will fuck with you endlessly until you’re compost. you can’t hide from it. there’s no hiding from anything, and especially not endings.”
something terrible is happening in new york city. ben dane’s father is dead and his mother has married his uncle. he’s enlisted the help of his best friend horatio to help investigate the death, but he and horatio haven’t even seen each other in a year. somewhere else in the city, his ex-fiancée, lia, is creating magical bouquets under the guidance of three mysterious women.
(to quote taylor swift: i think i’ve seen this film before. and i didn’t like the ending.)
the king of infinite space is a retelling of shakespeare’s tragedy of hamlet. but in the way you may have dreamed about while you read it in your high school english classes—let’s give the women actual agency, and make it canonically queer.
i studied hamlet in school, and i would consider it my favorite shakespeare play (although i don’t know it as well as i used to). i loved being able to read this and make connections. to put pieces together, and feel like a scholar. to hear lines that sounded just slightly familiar, and felt like a knowing look shared between friends across a room.
but for the familiarity of the story of hamlet, here i was still absolutely blown away by every choice made by faye. moments left me saying “no, she wouldn’t.” and screaming and crying over interpretative choices made.
it has easily become a new favorite. a book that left me in full sobs. a story of grief—for love lost and love just out of reach. for your parents and for your children. for the life you could have had, and the life you thought you did. a story of magic. a story of fate and time and the multiverse. a story that makes you think—maybe this time.
i talk a lot about rereading books. i love the familiarity of it. but sometimes i reread books because they beg to be reread. they have big reveals that change everything. reveals that say: look back. you should have seen this coming all along. how could you have not seen it?
before even this, i knew early on listening to king of infinite space on audiobook that this would be a book I would want to return to because of the magnetic and gorgeous prose. my fingers itch to highlight words i remember hearing. and in ben’s pov, there are stylistic fonts that show his thought processes. while i listened to the audio, i would often times open the book to flip through just to see how it was written. sometime soon i will give king of infinite space the full reread it deserves.
(and then—maybe this time.)
cw: death, suicide attempt and ideation, drug use and abuse, alcoholism, knife and gun violence, arson
bogwitchreads's review against another edition
5.0
(Upon re-reading, this still holds up)
Let me preface this by saying that this rating is not because I think this book is perfect (I don't), but simply that I had such a good time reading it that I cannot quite justify giving it any less than five stars for my own personal experience.
I also feel the need to include a disclaimer -- I cannot (and in all honesty do not want to) separate the adaptation wholly from the original when it comes to works I have loved for a long time, so if you are interested in how well this book stands up on its own, this review will be completely useless. I loved this book because I love Hamlet, and I love how Lindsay Faye treated Hamlet here, even where my interpretations differed from hers.
I have to give Faye a lot of credit because I do not think I have ever loved Hamlet as a character so much as I did here. I always love Horatio (and boy did I love Faye's Horatio!) and I always love Ophelia (though Faye's was perhaps the first novel adaptation Ophelia I actually saw as Ophelia, so again -- props to this book!), but even in the original play, I have never quite connected to Hamlet the person. Here, I understood him completely; I loved him, and I understood why Horatio and Ophelia loved him.
I also really loved the structure of the book and the distinction of each character's point of view, particularly in Hamlet's chapters. Though my interpretations of some of these characters differ from how they appeared in this book, I never disagreed with any of them. In fact, more than a few times, I had to stop myself from underlining a quote that so perfectly screamed that character because it was so in character I was afraid someone might worry about me if I let them borrow it and they saw those quotes underlined.
I will say that the dialogue felt a bit No Fear Shakespeare in places, which is always the trouble with such iconic lines. However, the further in I got, the less I noticed this being a problem. In conversations that do not mimic the original scenes, the dialogue drew me in and even made me laugh out loud a few times.
As a lifelong Shakespeare nerd, this book is exactly the book I wish I had in high school. Nearly everything about it satisfied my gay, nerdy heart, and at this point, the question is not if I will read it again but simply how soon?
Let me preface this by saying that this rating is not because I think this book is perfect (I don't), but simply that I had such a good time reading it that I cannot quite justify giving it any less than five stars for my own personal experience.
I also feel the need to include a disclaimer -- I cannot (and in all honesty do not want to) separate the adaptation wholly from the original when it comes to works I have loved for a long time, so if you are interested in how well this book stands up on its own, this review will be completely useless. I loved this book because I love Hamlet, and I love how Lindsay Faye treated Hamlet here, even where my interpretations differed from hers.
I have to give Faye a lot of credit because I do not think I have ever loved Hamlet as a character so much as I did here. I always love Horatio (and boy did I love Faye's Horatio!) and I always love Ophelia (though Faye's was perhaps the first novel adaptation Ophelia I actually saw as Ophelia, so again -- props to this book!), but even in the original play, I have never quite connected to Hamlet the person. Here, I understood him completely; I loved him, and I understood why Horatio and Ophelia loved him.
I also really loved the structure of the book and the distinction of each character's point of view, particularly in Hamlet's chapters. Though my interpretations of some of these characters differ from how they appeared in this book, I never disagreed with any of them. In fact, more than a few times, I had to stop myself from underlining a quote that so perfectly screamed that character because it was so in character I was afraid someone might worry about me if I let them borrow it and they saw those quotes underlined.
I will say that the dialogue felt a bit No Fear Shakespeare in places, which is always the trouble with such iconic lines. However, the further in I got, the less I noticed this being a problem. In conversations that do not mimic the original scenes, the dialogue drew me in and even made me laugh out loud a few times.
As a lifelong Shakespeare nerd, this book is exactly the book I wish I had in high school. Nearly everything about it satisfied my gay, nerdy heart, and at this point, the question is not if I will read it again but simply how soon?
brittradomski's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
tinybibliophile's review against another edition
Hamlet - retelling - I am there! I started reading this and could not get into it - the writing was beautiful, but the story was a bit all over the place and I couldn't continue anymore.
I received an ARC of this book for my honest review.
I received an ARC of this book for my honest review.
daffodildyke's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
firstly, it is important we all know that i adore hamlet. i know it by heart more or less and got 100% in my a level exam on it. i have a hamlet tattoo and was literally nicknamed hanlet in school. i threatened to write my homophobic english teacher a cited essay on why hamlet is queer. all of these things are important context for this review, because everything about this book should have been a gift, and i wanted to love it so much… but i just didn’t. i didn’t dislike it, but i simply feel content that i have finished it and not largely affected by it.
i love the lia storyline ending, in the sense it is the perfect tribute to ophelia and the way she is written out of the original play. her continued presence throughout this retelling is lovely in that sense and her link with flowers could have felt forced but doesn’t.
queer hamlet and horatio is so important to me, my entire teenage personality was basically based on it, so don’t get wrong, i am so glad to have read it there as clear as day, but it didn’t feel fleshed out enough, it didn’t feel like it does their complexities justice.
parts of this retelling felt arduous and unnecessary and these really detracted from the strong parts.
i think there is obvious love and care in this book, from the approach to addiction and suicide, to a love of hamlet. but i feel disappointed that all i have ever wanted is a queer, neurodiverse hamlet… and i don’t want to devour this book again and again.
i think partly, the issue will always be that i have my own hamlet retellings that live rent free in my head and will never make it to paper, so nobody else’s can live up to those, and it isn’t fair for me to expect them to.
i didn’t dislike this book, but i didn’t love it as much as i hoped and that feels worse in some ways. but i am grateful to the author for putting her hamlet retelling out into the world and confirming what we all know: hamlet is queer and neurodiverse and mentally ill, deeply in love with both ophelia and horatio, and at times, an insufferable pain in the ass!
i love the lia storyline ending, in the sense it is the perfect tribute to ophelia and the way she is written out of the original play. her continued presence throughout this retelling is lovely in that sense and her link with flowers could have felt forced but doesn’t.
queer hamlet and horatio is so important to me, my entire teenage personality was basically based on it, so don’t get wrong, i am so glad to have read it there as clear as day, but it didn’t feel fleshed out enough, it didn’t feel like it does their complexities justice.
parts of this retelling felt arduous and unnecessary and these really detracted from the strong parts.
i think there is obvious love and care in this book, from the approach to addiction and suicide, to a love of hamlet. but i feel disappointed that all i have ever wanted is a queer, neurodiverse hamlet… and i don’t want to devour this book again and again.
i think partly, the issue will always be that i have my own hamlet retellings that live rent free in my head and will never make it to paper, so nobody else’s can live up to those, and it isn’t fair for me to expect them to.
i didn’t dislike this book, but i didn’t love it as much as i hoped and that feels worse in some ways. but i am grateful to the author for putting her hamlet retelling out into the world and confirming what we all know: hamlet is queer and neurodiverse and mentally ill, deeply in love with both ophelia and horatio, and at times, an insufferable pain in the ass!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Violence, Grief, Suicide attempt, Drug use, Gun violence, Mental illness, Blood, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Murder, Suicide, and Death