Shakespeare, I'm Sorry They're Doing This To You

Thus With a Kiss I Die by Christina Dodd

Pages: 352 Genre: romance

Rating: 1.5 Star

Kindle Notes & Highlights

Rosaline Montague of Verona — yes, she is the daughter of Romeo and Juliet — is stuck in a betrothal with the prince after he took the place of her self-described One True Love in a plot that clearly did not go as planned. But Rosie is presented with a way out when, on a visit to the castle, she is visited by the ghost of her prince's long-dead father. He says he was murdered and needs Rosie to help him avenge his death, and he will help her in return. But as tensions rise in Verona (one might say that something is rotten), this plan proves itself more difficult than she expected.

Listen. This is not a kind review. I read the first book and hated it. I would've been incredibly happy to leave it in the past, but the description was about Hamlet. I had to read it, even if I knew that I'd hate it. I did hate it, and it really wasn't similar enough to Hamlet for me to be even a little gracious.

Obviously the general plot set up — the ghost of a murdered father appears and asks for revenge for his murder — is borrowed from Hamlet. Other than that, we get a Marcellus, the skull of Yorick makes an appearance, and there's a vaguely Murder of Gonzago-style plan. Outside of a few other poorly-timed quote references, that's it. And that's fine, because the book isn't claiming to be a Hamlet retelling. But neither of these two books have proven that the author genuinely enjoys the works of Shakespeare. I think it would be significantly improved if she wasn't so afraid of sounding intelligent or emotional. Instead, the book backs out of meaning at every opportunity.

The tone is so unclear. We'll be in a serious, emotional, or tense moment, and instead of letting it breathe, Rosie (or someone else) would make some stupid one-liner, sex joke, or fart joke and ruin it. Additionally, the language would waffle between seriously poetic and Shakespearean inspired by the regency era and modern trendy 20-year-old. The words "ain't" and "puhlease" both made an appearance in this book. It's disarming because I can never tell how I'm supposed to feel about what's happening.

I'm also incredibly dissatisfied with the writing around the prince. (Spoilers for the first book.) He knowingly assaulted her and trapped her in a marriage with him. And for this entire book, he is throwing a whole pity party about it. And Rosie buys into it! I'm supposed to feel bad for him being betrothed to someone who doesn't love him, when this entire scenario is his fault. Of course, this might not be so bad if he had any real personality. I think he's meant to be a brooding, morally-grey male love interest, but he's just bland and boring. If we're going to pivot fully into romance, the love interest should be build out a lot more than he was, and he shouldn't be hidden in the background.

The writing was also unforgivably bad. There was a major issue with repetition. Occasionally, after a few chapters, Rosie would sit and contemplate everything that happened by simply recounting everything exactly as it just occurred. Literally, this would be a list of events that just happened, and this "writing technique" happened at least three separate times. And that's not to mention entire sentences that would be repeated as if the same thing hadn't just been said two lines previously.

I knew what I was getting into with this book, and I'm still disappointed in it. Hamlet, Shakespeare, Romeo, Juliet: I'm so sorry you're caught up in this.