#feel free to send me recs for shakespeare retellings at any time btw!

[butchhamlet]

are there any shakespeare retellings you recommend? i really enjoy retellings but it's also difficult to find ones that like. actually understand the source material... i've read your novella duodecimal and really liked it btw! excellent take on twelfth night :-)

THANK YOU SO MUCH WAH... yes, i can recommend some retellings! i keep intending to make a big post with my recs, actually, but there are so many out there that i haven't read yet... so for now here's an incomplete list:

a thousand acres by jane smiley: the first one that came to my mind seeing this ask. it's a retelling of lear set on an american farmstead, and the adaptation is done beautifully and smoothly--it's just distinct enough from OG Lear that you can judge it as a book on its own but also as a lear retelling. and it's sooooo good. it starts a little slow, but the character work is so excellent and it almost made me cry (i will note that there's a pretty hefty cw on this one but... saying what it is is technically spoilers? but feel free to send another ask or message if you want to know up-front)

the last true poets of the sea by julia drake: books that made me have to turn my camera off in zoom class so i could bawl properly. books written for me specifically. this is a loose YA retelling of twelfth night (looser than some of the other retellings on this list) and it's like. perfect. the teenage dialogue actually sounds like teenagers. every emotional beat clubbed me over the head. the love triangle is present--and done really well; it's not present for drama but because sometimes being a teenager is confusing--but more than that this is a book about the relationship between violet and her sibling, and about mental health, and god it makes me CRAZY. also girls kiss in this one

rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead by tom stoppard: i mean. i think most people into shakespeare know r&gad. but in case you haven't read it yet, it's an absurdist play from the point of view of rosencrantz and guildenstern and it's absolutely fucking brilliant. not sure what else to say about this; you've really just gotta read it

teenage dick by mike lew: another play, this one on the modern side--a retelling of richard iii set in a high school, focusing explicitly on disability issues. kind of more a reimagining than a retelling, honestly, but i really like the exploration of r3's themes and also it's fucking hysterical. although i will say there's a kind of jarring tonal shift in this one near the end, so don't go to it for something 100% comedic

american moor by keith hamilton cobb: okay this isn't exactly a retelling but if you've ever read othello you have to read it. you just have to. please god if you've ever read a shakespeare PLEASE. it's a monologue from the perspective of a black man trying out for the role of othello, half-resigned to being pigeonholed into playing that specific role in a very specific way as directed by a white director, but also half-chafing against that resignation, and also exploring the complexities of loving shakespeare as a black man, and it's soooooo so good

exit, pursued by a bear by e.k. johnston: this one is kind of cheating because it's not really a retelling, in that it has next to nothing to do with the winter's tale except that there is a hermione character and a leontes character and a paulina character. i still think it's a very very well-done YA book, though, and one of the only ones i've read that deals head-on with abortion

foul is fair by hannah capin: okay, i will admit i read this one some years ago when i was more into YA, so i'm not sure i would still go crazy over it now, but the plot of this book is that the modern lady macbeth character gets assaulted by a guy at a party and decides to kill everyone who let that happen. and then she does. and idk i read it in two days it felt like being on crack

the wednesday wars by gary schmidt: this one is DEFINITELY cheating, because this isn't a retelling of anything. but if you like shakespeare and you're open to reading historical fiction about a kid in the 60s using shakespeare as a lens through which to understand the chaos of his life (from the vietnam war to his school crush)... it's so good. it made me nearly sob. beautiful book

i'm also a fan of ryan north's shakespeare choose-your-own-adventure books, but those aren't exactly retellings and also the humor will probably not work for everyone. but i like em <3

and finally, i would be remiss not to shout out the fact that @suits-of-woe wrote an INCREDIBLE retelling of the two gentlemen of verona that, like, redeemed the fact that that play exists. if you've read that play and you thought, "wow, i wish this were explicitly homoerotic, or not a rape apologia, or good in any way," you will LOVE macy's book. unfortunately it isn't fucking published yet but WITH YOUR HELP--

#max.txt #feel free to send me recs for shakespeare retellings at any time btw! #i've been collecting a list #i just haven't gotten around to most of the books on it yet #asks