"Hag-Seed" by Margaret Atwood

Hag-Seed is the second Shakespeare retold book I've read from Hogarth Shakespeare. Written by Margaret Atwood, it's the retelling of The Tempest. I was unfamiliar with The Tempest prior to reading this novel.

Stage director Felix suffers a betrayal right as he's preparing his masterpiece, The Tempest, for stage. With his prestigious position stolen from him, he becomes a recluse, nearly off-the-grid. He assumes a new identity and employment as a theater director for a prison program, where he finally plots his revenge against those who wronged him.

Suffering also from the loss of his young daughter many years ago, Felix is a bit of a wild card--you're never sure just how far he'll go. He goes through his days imagining what his daughter would be doing at every moment, talking with her, and pretending she is there with him.Parallels between The Tempest play he's directing with inmates and the revenge plot he's crafted are  very clear, even down to some of the people in Felix's life having similar names to Shakespeare's plays.

My favorite part of the book was the inmates. They were distinct and showed growth through the novel; they loved the theater program and thus made the it the very best they could.

The play within a novel where basically the plot of the play actually happens provided a refreshing way to get to know the play, without completely giving everything away. After the epilogue, there is a brief plot summary of the original play, which fills in any gaps and ties the two stories fully together. I now feel very familiar with the story of the play.

I wasn't as invested in the whole revenge plot as the rest of the novel, which really slowed down my reading. Obviously the book needed conflict of some kind, and it was also paralleling The Tempest, but especially since it had been 12 years, I kind of just wanted it to be over with.

I received this book for free, but was not required to write a positive review.

To Review: "Hag-Seed" by Margaret Atwood

Next up to review is Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. It's a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, published by Hogarth Shakespeare.

I've read another novel from the same publisher that was the retelling of The Winter's Tale, which was called The Gap of Time, by Jeanette Winterson. Though I wasn't a huge fan of that retelling, I do like Shakespeare and Margaret Atwood, so perhaps this one will be a better fit!

I've read Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake (with The Blind Assassin sitting in my to-be-read pile!). Looking forward to getting into Hag-Seed and letting you know how it is!

Happy New Year! - Best of 2014

It was a great year of new books and old favorites! After some long deliberation, I present my top reads from 2014!

The Runners-Up: One Realm Beyond by Donita K. Paul, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson.

3. On the Shoulders of Hobbits by Louis Markos

2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

1. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Happy New Year and here's to another great year of reading! 

What were the best books you read this year? 

An Honest Narrator from "The Handmaid's Tale"

It's been a long time since I've encountered as honest of a narrator as Offred in The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.  Through the novel she would forewarn the reader when she was recreating a scene or adding in information that was she learned later.  She would tell a story the way she wished it played out, but then retracting by saying, "That's not how it happened." At one point, it even took her three attempts to get the story right.

In the epilogue, we are told that the story we have been hearing was actually recorded on a series of tapes that some professors and experts had to put into logical order.  This frame also adds to the honesty of a "reconstruction" of past events rather than a linear telling of what happened, where, and to whom.  The professors assure us that the account is likely true based on what they know of their research on Gileadean society.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and when I got to the epilogue, I was so glad I had! Offred intended for her story to be heard, listened to by a future generation.  She spoke directly at her listener towards the end of the novel, too, saying things like, "If I meet you," and "By telling you anything at all, I believe in you."  Through the audible first person narration, it felt like a sincere passing on of knowledge from one person to another.  It was those moments where Offred addressed the audience that finalized any doubts one could have about her reliability.  She had no reason to hide anything any more.  As the professors in the epilogue said, there was no way to find out anything specific about who she was or where she went after recording the tapes.