I loved reading Hamnet. Stratford feels comforting and familiar and it felt like the story was written as if the reader is in it, silently observing everything, sitting alongside the family in the moment which feels very special and was a nice change from feeling like we are in the protagonist's shoes. 

The story is paced well, spanning from Shakespeare and Anne's childhoods to their grief at losing Hamnet. The story flicks between the present in which Hamnet is slowly dying (of which the reader is aware from the beginning), and the past, with the tones of both stories balancing out neatly to provide tension and grief with hope and tenderness, allowing the reader to prepare for tragedy and culminating in a very sensitive portrayal of grief over the loss of a child which is not played for shock factor. 

The relationship between Anne and Shakespeare feels complex and believable, and the characters are written so that despite their conflicting interests, you end up rooting for all of them. 

Elusively refusing to call Shakespeare Shakespeare, opting instead for things like "the latin tutor" and "the father", despite the fact we know he is Shakespeare and the rest of the family have names got a bit tiring but I appreciate that this story sought to center his family in their own narrative rather than as footnotes to a man's success, so it is very tolerable. 

The writing itself also had a lovely quality to it, adding a sense of poetry to the story and making it an entirely enjoyable read.

Enjoyed it more towards the last half of the book. It has great description of characters and setting, but not much plot. Writing style and use of language is gorgeous though.

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.

Everything about this book feels real. Shakespeare is never once mentioned by name, and that's because he's not the center of this story. Instead, we find Agnes, his wife, at the center. Everything revolves around her--an intelligent, intuitive, and strong healer and mother who could not save her son.

Hamnet is a book about grief. Especially the grief of losing a child. It's very human, very rich, and very poetic. There's a dreamlike quality to it that suits the story, and it should be ready on a gloomy, rainy day. 

O'Farrell paints a vivid picture of both the characters and the setting. The book has a strong sense of place and time, and the setting is almost a character itself. In addition, each character stands out as a richly colored portrait with depth and color and feeling. I found myself utterly lost in the pages. 

I loved it.

This book was bought and recommended by my Grandmother and it made me tear up a bit. But more the character Judith, sister of Hamnet and her relationship with the loss of a sibling that felt personal to me. The description of Hamnet craving the snow to rest was heart wrenching and the ghostly and supernatural is this novel created a life and more drama within the grief. I was worried at the start that these magical elements would ruin the novel, but it actually deepened the understanding of the characters and especially in Agnes’ perspective on her husband and and their relationship. The last part though was a bit of a slog, and not sure why the scenes were there - felt like it was covering all content, however a marvellous book nonetheless.