Book Review: Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Rating: 3 ⭐⭐⭐

There are a number of factors that drew me in to reading Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell:

1. I had heard so many amazing reviews about the way in which O'Farrell writes and how there is an almost dreamlike quality to her prose.

2. I have always had an interest in the work of Shakespeare and Hamlet (one that the novel is based upon) is one that I was not as familiar with.

3. The idea of being able to dive into the re-imagined story of a character that no one knows much about truly peaked my interest even further!

So, as you can probably imagine, I went into this read with quite a few high (-ish) expectations and with even more excitement than ever. But, I do not know what it was about this book, I just could not get into it and came a way feeling a little disappointed. One of my biggest pet peeves with books is long chapters and this book had nothing but...which probably didn't help my case at all! Not only that, but I found the narrative incredibly hard to follow at times as O'Farrell toggles between two timelines: one beginning on the day that the plague hits Hamnet's twin sister, the other that circles right back to the start of the parents' relationship. With little clear indication of either, I found that the book took a lot more piecing together than I would have wanted.

With that all being said, this book still has a whole lot of positives and one that I would definitely recommend to any avid Shakespeare fan out there. It is clear that O'Farrell has taken exceeding pride and thought into the creation of this book - with the amount of research that she must have taken shining through every page. O'Farrell is both versatile and profound in her writing and although this was my first time reading one of her novels, it most definitely will not be my last! And finally, at the heart of this novel is the study of Agnes Shakespeare (the woman we all know as Anne Hathaway). Hamnet becomes a reminder of a woman who has been maligned by history as O'Farrell seeks to retrieve the absent, grieving mother hidden within history.

Hamnet is sole proof that there are always new stories to tell, and always new perspectives to imagine (especially ones that include one of literature's most infamous writers). I guess that comes with the beauty of historical fiction writing...