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Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

238 reviews

jiao_li's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

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himpersonal's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I think that if any of the emotional fiction is true, I might forgive Shakespeare a little for all the misogyny, xenophobia, and racism laced throughout his plays.

I get why he is treated without being named. Names are so important and have been used as symbolism by authors for centuries. In this book, he is the least important person, the least deserving of my attention, and if anything, kind of the villain. But he is also the same as many other man - philandering, self-centered, grieving, privileged, and oblivious to the patriarchy. And he is as absent to me as he was to his family.

Agnes was a well written character worthy of my empathy and respect.
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ashleyfayewall's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

5.0

Gorgeous. I wanted to read this so much slower but I couldn’t. Her writing is phenomenal.
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lizziaha's review against another edition

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  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Finished this book and immediately started sobbing. The way that Maggie O’Farrell writes about grief is so exquisite and heartbreaking, yet I wish this book would’ve lasted forever. The language was beautiful and Agnes might just be the coolest person in all of literature. 
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stephintoadventure's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • 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

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katie0528's review against another edition

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dark sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I picked this up as a big fan of Maggie O'Farrell's book The Marriage Portrait. I liked this one but preferred the other boom better. Despite being the titular character, Hamnet isn't really the main character. Instead, the story alternates between his parents' love stoy and his twin sister Judith falling ill with the plague.
After his death, it becomes an exploration of his mother's grief
and how the iconic Shakespearean play bearing his name may have come to pass. The book is fiction, purely speculative, but I feel like Shakespeare's family is often forgotten in history, so it was intruiging to read something from their perspective.
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ksilvio's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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the_neeerd's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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aidamaria_reads's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

An extraordinary interpretation of the life Shakespeare’s family might have led, based on the few things we now know about the playwright’s life.

Maggie O’Farrell knows her grief and how to spin it into print. The descriptions of pain and agony are almost poetic and yet so clear, so moving, that you have no trouble imagining just how the characters feel. I almost cried at times, wanted to slap certain characters straight into tomorrow had they not all been dead yet, and enjoyed the beauty of this work of historical fiction tremendously.

I can’t put my finger on why it’s not entirely a five-star read for me, but I see how the author received the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020 for this book.
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jcqln112's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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