Mundie Moms

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Book Review & Giveaway: Falling for Hamlet

Published by Poppy/Little Brown
To Be Released on July 5th, 2011
Source- ARC from publisher at TLA
3.5 stars- It's A Good Modern Day Re-Telling of a Classic Story

Meet Ophelia: a blonde, beautiful high-school senior and long-time girlfriend of Prince Hamlet of Denmark. Her life is dominated not only by her boyfriend's fame and his overbearing family, but also by the paparazzi who hound them wherever they go. As the devastatingly handsome Hamlet spirals into madness after the mysterious death of his father, the King, Ophelia rides out his crazy roller coaster life, and lives to tell about it. In live television interviews, of course.

Passion, romance, drama, humor, and tragedy intertwine in this compulsively readable debut novel, told by a strong-willed, modern-day Ophelia.

I have really been looking forward to reading Falling for Hamlet. I'm been curious to see how the two stories compare and I love it when an author can take a classic story and rewrite it, giving it a modern day feel. I think Michelle did a good job with her retelling of Hamlet. It was really unique as not only is the story from Ophelia's point of view, but each chapter starts off with Ophelia answering questions on a famous talk show hosts site, then it goes into the story and then the chapter ends with Ophelia being questioned by the DDI. Not only did this provide an insight to what she's been dealing with, but it also flowed well with the story.

Much like the Shakesphere's Hamlet, Michelle Ray's modern day retelling of this classic tale is full of deceit, betrayal, murder and love, if you could call it that. I thought Michelle did a great job at capturing the tragedy that befalls Hamlet, Ophelia and their families. She stayed true to the story with it's dark, twisted plot, and even kept in some of the same lines, which I loved. I also thought she did a great job at giving the story a modern day feel to it, by setting the story in Denmark. The way she wrote Hamlet was tragic and relatable. Being a Prince and coming from a royal family with a lot of money, allows him basically to get away with anything. Without giving away spoilers to her unique spin on the story, Michelle allowed me to understand Hamlet's actions, not that I agreed with them. I couldn't help but feeling bad for how broken he literally becomes. Ophelia, Hamlet's on and off again girlfriend gets her fair share of cleaning up his messes and being stuck in the middle of much of the families deceit.

I liked what Michelle did with all the main characters and I often times felt torn with Ophelia. The story is told from her point of view and often times I found myself feeling bad for her with all she has to deal with, but then there other times I wanted to yell at her and tell her to stop dealing with all the drama. Ophelia is also a character who has the right amount of girl power, and sarcasm, and I love the inner power she found within herself by the end of the book. I of course loved her witty comments she makes during her interrogation, which at times she had me laughing out loud. Ophelia is a strong character but there were plenty of times I wondered why she wasn't strong enough to just say no to Hamlet. There's so much drama between the two of them and it made me wonder why she took so much of his emotional abuse during much of the story. I loved her brother Laertes, not only does he warn her about Hamlet, but he compares their love to a violet and says, "Sure it's beautiful and perfect, but it can't last".

You definitely do not need to read Hamlet to read Falling for Hamlet. As I said before, Michelle stays true to original story with the characters relationships, the backstabbing, the trouble some of them get into as well as keeping in the sexual innuendoes, which are also in the play. I would definitely recommend this book for older teens. While there are no sex scenes, there are mentions of it, there is very mild language, and a scene that involves some underage drinking at a college party. This is a good read with a great modern twist on a classic story.

__________________________________________

Enter for your chance to win an ARC of Falling for Hamlet! This giveaway is open internationally. To enter, please fill out the form below:

14 comments:

  1. thank you so much for making it international. I put this on my library wish-list yesterday :D
    Looks a great additon for the school library and a fab resource for Shakespeare :D D:

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Emma- You're so welcome! It's a great addition for teens and one I think a lot of them will enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That's good to know you don't need to have read Hamlet first to understand this! It seems like an interesting read. Great review!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm really looking forward to reading this. Thanks for the review!

    ReplyDelete
  5. now I want to read this book!!I never actually got to read Hamlet!:D so I hope this is good!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm glad you said you don't have to read Hamlet to understand this one because I doubt I'll ever get around to it, lol I have been looking forward to this one. Thanks for the review!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the review and the giveaway! This has been on my to-read list for awhile. Glad to see it'll be worth a read (:

    ~Susan

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've been wondering if this would be a good companion novel to the play. Thanks for the giveaway!

    ReplyDelete
  9. OH MY GOSH, this book has actually been on my wish list for months! I'm a huge Shakespeare fan (except for Macbeth which I just didn't like), so I've been craving to read a book based on one of my favourite classics! This modern retelling of Hamlet sounds so good :)

    Thanks so much for the chance to win an ARC! I'm super excited!

    ReplyDelete
  10. You're welcome for the giveaway :)

    I hope you all enjoy the story. It's a well written, modern day Hamlet. I want to go re-read Hamlet now after reading it.

    ReplyDelete
  11. This book looks so cool. I love the cover!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for the giveaway! I love Shakespeare, so this retelling of Hamlet sounds very interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Falling for Hamlet sounds amazing! Thanks for the giveaway!

    ReplyDelete

Labels