Written by Alan M. Gratz, narrated by Erik Davies
Reason for Reading: I plan on reading a few Hamlet retellings, and this is the first I picked up. (Now if only I would pick Hamlet up again - what's with me?! I still have two more acts!)
Review
In this hard-boiled teen retelling of Hamlet, Horatio Wilkes spends a summer in the small-town home of his buddy Hamilton Prince. The Prince family runs a paper plant which is currently undergoing scrutiny for pollution. On top of that controversy, Hamilton's father has just passed away, and his mother just married her dead husband's brother. When Hamilton gets a video from his dead father claiming that he'd been poisoned, Horatio promises to root out the murderer. Something is rotten in the town of Denmark, Tennessee. :)
This little mystery was funny (though neo-noir isn't my usual type of humor, I still got a few chuckles). The plot is pretty straight-forward if you already know the story of Hamlet, so I felt very little suspense - on the other hand, it was interesting to see how Gratz played around with the story to make it more appropriate to younger audiences. He managed to stay true to the events in the play, but made it more realistic and less tragic. There are a few Shakespeare quotes thrown in which made me roll my eyes and groan, but in a "good" way. :) I'd say this book is appropriate for 11-15 year olds.
I've read some and heard tell of many re-tellings but never of Hamlet - Intrigued by this I'm hoping our library will be able to get hold of a copy.
ReplyDeleteThere are several retellings of Hamlet, actually, ranging from Hamlet Manga and Klingon Hamlet to more literary ones like Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike.
DeleteThis is an interesting concept. Other then the title, does the cover of the book play up that it is a retelling of Hamlet or does the reader need to figure it out for themselves?
ReplyDeleteI don't THINK the cover was meant to play up Hamlet. I think the cover was meant to look neo-noir. The cover for Something Wicked (the second book in the series) looks much the same, except the girl is different and it's blue. And that one, of course, is a Macbeth retelling.
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