fairywhispers's "Books I Recommend for Tweens and Teens"

I began this novel with great trepidation, but I was pleasantly surprised. I loved how Marsden added a bit of background to some of characters (Horatio is a good example of this). I also liked how he left the time ambiguous. Hamlet could be any teenager in any time going through a very trying experience.

The beautiful language of Shakespeare is absent, of course, though Marsden has made an effort to use some of the original lines. At least part of Ophelia’s mad soliloquy is intact (I haven’t compared it to my copy of Hamlet yet, but I recognised some of the lines) and the more famous lines (‘To be or not to be’ & ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ for example) are included. Hamlet: a novel is definitely worth reading, and is a great way to introduce tweens to wonderful world of Shakespeare.