11:120 Nutshell: A Novel by Ian McEwan

A retelling of Hamlet but told in modern times with the unborn Hamlet as the narrator.  Trudy is late into her third term and her lover and husband's brother, Claude, has convinced her they must kill John, her husband, so they can sell the family house and live in luxury together after the baby is born and sent away.  The baby describes all he hears and imagines he sees and tastes as the plot unfolds since he is privy to all their plans although powerless to do anything from inside the womb.


No, just absolutely freaking no!  I tried to like this book, I really did but there could be no suspension of disbelief for me and as we got further into it the more I screamed and raged at it until the birth scene when I actively wanted to start throwing things, many things, all the things because it was so freaking ridiculous.  I will grant that the prose is beautiful and would have been amazing from another narrator but as an unborn baby it just simply did not work for me in any way.  Basic biology was completely against all of it and there was nothing to help me get past it.  Would I read this author again?  Maybe. It would really depend upon the subject and especially, the narrator.

Page count: 208p/2,654p ytd/277,129p lifetime

10:120 Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

Felix has been cast aside.  No, not just cast aside! His place in the theater that he has worked so hard for, put all his dreams into, has been stolen from him by the one he thought he was mentoring.  Now he is an out-of-work director/actor with no prospects with his life in shambles as this came on the heels of the death of his young daughter.  So he goes into seclusion coming out only when a unique opportunity to ply his trade, as a teacher of a drama class for a correctional facility where he might be able to enact revenge on those that have wronged him.  Several years pass and the time is finally upon him and what play would he have his group put on but The Tempest, the one he was working on when he was thrown out.  What play could be more perfect?!

This is almost a retelling of The Tempest while still using the original play itself as a focal point.  The weaving of the two tales is wonderfully done and there is enough explanation that you can see the similarities even if you aren't familiar with the original Shakespeare play (and I only had a passing knowledge of it) but it doesn't seem heavy-handed and doesn't bog the story itself down.  I really enjoyed it and am now interested in seeing what some of the other authors in this series have done with their stories.


Page count: 324p/2,446p ytd/276,921p lifetime

31:120 Little Women and Werewolves by Porter Grand

Ok, really if you haven't read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott than you probably have no business reading this one.  We have the March family with their four daughters who had money once upon a time but are currently destitute.  You have their rich neighbors, the Laurence's, which is a grandfather who is raising his only grandchild.  Unlike in the original, in this one both of them are werewolves.  Werewolves are simply a fact of life in this story.  You don't go out on nights of the full moon.  You are careful about what you say so that the Brigade does not accuse you of being a werewolf sympathizer.  We follow the group of girls as they grow up into women and start families of their own and each deals with werewolves in their own way as they must.

I want to start by saying that I love the original and honestly have no clue how many times I read it but it does mean that I knew every place where this differed from the original and not all of them had to do with the werewolves.  The insertion was done nicely and they kept the main story basically unchanged with a few minor exceptions and I found it enjoyable.  I did have some problems with what they did with Beth and her relationship with Mr. Laurence but I found the addition to the ending a nice, unforeseen twist.

Page count: 416p/6,849p ytd/221,783p lifetime