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helena_sp_07's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Child abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, and Death of parent
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
ntvenessa's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
"I am dead:
Thou livest;
... draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story"
Hamlet, Act V, Scene II
Stunning.
Graphic: Child death, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Emotional abuse
Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Alcohol, and Classism
lena_and_her_books's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child death, Death, Sexual content, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Blood, Medical content, and Death of parent
honeycrispp's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Child abuse, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Blood, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, and Alcohol
Minor: Animal death and Gaslighting
terrik_'s review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Infidelity, Physical abuse, and Blood
Minor: Animal cruelty and Animal death
balfies's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Child death, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Blood
writtenontheflyleaves's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
🌟🌟🌟🌟
💀 The plot: Stratford, 1596. An 11-year-old boy is desperately trying to find help for his sister, who has fallen ill. His mother is out of reach on the edge of town, his father even further away in London. No one knows yet that this boy will not survive the week - or that three years later, his father will give his name to one of the most famous plays ever written.
Hamnet is a feat of imagination from start to finish. It's vivid, it's moving. It's wildly overwritten at times - a hand movement or journey from room to room might take a full page - but it does something I think is really hard to do: it brings a famous person from history fully to life. Shakespeare is a character we know little about while having a huge idea of him in our collective consciousness, and O'Farrell writes him as just a man. A son, a husband, a father. A Latin tutor. Someone real, who you can feel for.
The result is a book that feels like a look into history with a lower-case "h". O'Farrell's not so much interested in the origins of Hamlet the play or in Shakespeare's artistic genius, but in the profound grief its name suggests for Hamnet the boy, and in helping her reader live that loss alongside his family. It's a novel that is both much bigger and much smaller than the question of how or why Shakespeare wrote, and I think that's why I liked it.
🦉 Read it for a complex portrait of a Midlands hero (big up Billy Shakes), deeply-felt characterisation, and if you want a nice big cry.
🚫 Avoid it if you find excessive description or a slow pace exhausting (I love a nice slow novel, but this tested me at points!) - also if you're not in a place to read about child death or pregnancy at the moment.
Graphic: Child death, Death, Grief, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
mscalls's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
kizzy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Blood, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Blood