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Falling for Hamlet Michelle Ray Books

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Falling for Hamlet Michelle Ray Books

3.5 stars

I have really been looking forward to reading Falling for Hamlet. I'm been curious to see how the two stories compare and I love it when an author can take a classic story and rewrite it, giving it a modern day feel. I think Michelle did a good job with her retelling of Hamlet. It was really unique as not only is the story from Ophelia's point of view, but each chapter starts off with Ophelia answering questions on a famous talk show hosts site, then it goes into the story and then the chapter ends with Ophelia being questioned by the DDI. Not only did this provide an insight to what she's been dealing with, but it also flowed well with the story.

Much like the Shakesphere's Hamlet, Michelle Ray's modern day retelling of this classic tale is full of deceit, betrayal, murder and love, if you could call it that. I thought Michelle did a great job at capturing the tragedy that befalls Hamlet, Ophelia and their families. She stayed true to the story with it's dark, twisted plot, and even kept in some of the same lines, which I loved. I also thought she did a great job at giving the story a modern day feel to it, by setting the story in Denmark. The way she wrote Hamlet was tragic and relatable. Being a Prince and coming from a royal family with a lot of money, allows him basically to get away with anything. Without giving away spoilers to her unique spin on the story, Michelle allowed me to understand Hamlet's actions, not that I agreed with them. I couldn't help but feeling bad for how broken he literally becomes. Ophelia, Hamlet's on and off again girlfriend gets her fair share of cleaning up his messes and being stuck in the middle of much of the families deceit.

I liked what Michelle did with all the main characters and I often times felt torn with Ophelia. The story is told from her point of view and often times I found myself feeling bad for her with all she has to deal with, but then there other times I wanted to yell at her and tell her to stop dealing with all the drama. Ophelia is also a character who has the right amount of girl power, and sarcasm, and I love the inner power she found within herself by the end of the book. I of course loved her witty comments she makes during her interrogation, which at times she had me laughing out loud. Ophelia is a strong character but there were plenty of times I wondered why she wasn't strong enough to just say no to Hamlet. There's so much drama between the two of them and it made me wonder why she took so much of his emotional abuse during much of the story. I loved her brother Laertes, not only does he warn her about Hamlet, but he compares their love to a violet and says, "Sure it's beautiful and perfect, but it can't last".

You definitely do not need to read Hamlet to read Falling for Hamlet. As I said before, Michelle stays true to original story with the characters relationships, the backstabbing, the trouble some of them get into as well as keeping in the sexual innuendoes, which are also in the play. I would definitely recommend this book for older teens. While there are no sex scenes, there are mentions of it, there is very mild language, and a scene that involves some underage drinking at a college party. This is a good read with a great modern twist on a classic story.


Tags : Amazon.com: Falling for Hamlet (9780316101622): Michelle Ray: Books,Michelle Ray,Falling for Hamlet,Poppy,0316101621,Girls & Women,Performing Arts - Theater & Musicals,Romance - General,Murder;Fiction.,Princes;Fiction.,Revenge;Fiction.,Children's Books - Young Adult Fiction,Children: Young Adult (Gr. 10-12),Family - General,Fiction,Love & Romance,Murder,Princes,Revenge,Royalty (kings queens princes princesses knights etc.),YOUNG ADULT FICTION,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Coming of Age,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Girls & Women,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Royalty,YOUNG ADULT FICTION Social Themes Mental Illness,Young Adult Fiction Performing Arts Theater & Musicals,Young Adult Fiction Romance General

Falling for Hamlet Michelle Ray Books Reviews

As a British literature teacher, I teach Hamlet every semester to a group of seniors who have a lot of trouble interpreting it. Reading this book along side the real text will make my job so much easier! Hopefully, I can convince my administrator to buy a class set!
This book will make even the most non Shakespeare lover want to re-read/watch Hamlet. However, it is a wonderful book all on its own for all readers. The poignant story of the young girl dating the celebrity hits home on so many levels. The truth all of our mothers wanted us to learn - "Don't lose yourself for any man." I highly recommend for all young adult readers and for all Shakespeare lovers and everyone in between. A great book for mothers and daughters to read together. THIS BOOK NEEDS TO BE A MOVIE! Congratulations Michelle Ray on your debut book. Can hardly wait to read the next one.
The author has done many good things in this book; the most important is transforming the character of Ophelia into a modern young person who offers much more to young women readers than did Shakespeare's original. Ophelia here is a likable, normal girl in love with a troubled prince, and their relationship as portrayed is very believable and compelling. There is a lot of very good writing about the pressures of young love combined with the glare of celebrity and the effect of instant media attention - picture taking cell phones a constant threat to a fragile relationship. The friendship between Hamlet, Horatio, and Ophelia I also thought was very well drawn and echos the ways in which friends support each other in dealing with the challenges of high school and college. And, Ophelia's friendship with Hamlet's father (the book begins before his murder) is very poignant. There are also many interesting Shakespearean as well a cultural puzzles to be solved in the text, which makes the book interesting to adult as well as younger readers - I think I found a reference to Teddy Kennedy and Chappaquidick in the portrayal of King Claudius. All in all, highly recommended.
The FX series "The Royals" is based on this book, so thought I'd give it a try. It is very much a YA version of Hamlet, told from Ophelia's POV and set in a modern context.
In a field that usually brings us the familiar tropes of love at first sight between impossibly beautiful people and girls giving up everything for their random love interests, this book was a big old relief. As others have mentioned here, Ophelia manages to be a girl plausibly in love but who also doesn't completely lose her mind, a la Kate Capshaw in the Temple of Doom. Some of the modern adaptations were well thought out, especially the elevators in the big shiny new Elsinore. My one big complaint is that when you get to the way that Hamlet, etc. die, the method is a little, shall we say, silly. It kind of took something away from the rest of the adaptations, which seemed sensible. Why not just have a fencing match? People still do that today. But I'd recommend this book over much of the young adult field today, because women act like recognizable people.
3 stars, or "it's okay," is exactly how I felt. I read it and enjoyed some of it. It's a light and easy read. I didn't care for the structure of the book; each chapter contains an interrogation scene and a television interview scene with the storyline sandwiched in between. The voice of Ophelia in the interrogation does not feel like it matches the Ophelia we come to know in the body of the story. The interrogation dialogue consistently annoyed me. Still, it was refreshing to read a version of Hamlet where Ophelia makes it out alive. I can see the resonation of the original Hamlet clearly, but why this inspired the show Royals is a bit beyond me. The only similarity is the movement of Hamlet from archaic times to modern. Don't expect this book to even slightly resemble the show it spawned!
3.5 stars

I have really been looking forward to reading Falling for Hamlet. I'm been curious to see how the two stories compare and I love it when an author can take a classic story and rewrite it, giving it a modern day feel. I think Michelle did a good job with her retelling of Hamlet. It was really unique as not only is the story from Ophelia's point of view, but each chapter starts off with Ophelia answering questions on a famous talk show hosts site, then it goes into the story and then the chapter ends with Ophelia being questioned by the DDI. Not only did this provide an insight to what she's been dealing with, but it also flowed well with the story.

Much like the Shakesphere's Hamlet, Michelle Ray's modern day retelling of this classic tale is full of deceit, betrayal, murder and love, if you could call it that. I thought Michelle did a great job at capturing the tragedy that befalls Hamlet, Ophelia and their families. She stayed true to the story with it's dark, twisted plot, and even kept in some of the same lines, which I loved. I also thought she did a great job at giving the story a modern day feel to it, by setting the story in Denmark. The way she wrote Hamlet was tragic and relatable. Being a Prince and coming from a royal family with a lot of money, allows him basically to get away with anything. Without giving away spoilers to her unique spin on the story, Michelle allowed me to understand Hamlet's actions, not that I agreed with them. I couldn't help but feeling bad for how broken he literally becomes. Ophelia, Hamlet's on and off again girlfriend gets her fair share of cleaning up his messes and being stuck in the middle of much of the families deceit.

I liked what Michelle did with all the main characters and I often times felt torn with Ophelia. The story is told from her point of view and often times I found myself feeling bad for her with all she has to deal with, but then there other times I wanted to yell at her and tell her to stop dealing with all the drama. Ophelia is also a character who has the right amount of girl power, and sarcasm, and I love the inner power she found within herself by the end of the book. I of course loved her witty comments she makes during her interrogation, which at times she had me laughing out loud. Ophelia is a strong character but there were plenty of times I wondered why she wasn't strong enough to just say no to Hamlet. There's so much drama between the two of them and it made me wonder why she took so much of his emotional abuse during much of the story. I loved her brother Laertes, not only does he warn her about Hamlet, but he compares their love to a violet and says, "Sure it's beautiful and perfect, but it can't last".

You definitely do not need to read Hamlet to read Falling for Hamlet. As I said before, Michelle stays true to original story with the characters relationships, the backstabbing, the trouble some of them get into as well as keeping in the sexual innuendoes, which are also in the play. I would definitely recommend this book for older teens. While there are no sex scenes, there are mentions of it, there is very mild language, and a scene that involves some underage drinking at a college party. This is a good read with a great modern twist on a classic story.