shakespeare – Odd and Bookish

Click the picture to purchase the book on Amazon

Rating: ★★★★★

I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher (Quirk Books) for promotional purposes.

This book is pure genius!

I’m a huge MCU fan (I’ve seen every movie and tv show) and I enjoy reading Shakespeare so I knew I needed to read this. I’ve also read the author’s Shakespearean Mean Girls retelling (aptly titled Much Ado About Mean Girls) and loved it.

This book is all 4 Avengers movies written as Shakespearen plays. It includes stage directions, a list of characters, and even full color illustrations (loved seeing the Avengers dressed Shakespearean style). All the iconic lines and scenes are translated perfectly.

However, the most genius aspects are the Prologue and the characters’ speech patterns. The Prologue recaps the previous movies (i.e. Iron Man, Captain America) and is written in an acrostic that spells out the movie titles. How smart is that?

The author gave all the main Avengers characters (20 in total) unique speech patterns. For example, Hawkeye’s dialogue features bird related terms for obvious reasons and Ant-Man’s dialogue contains both a one syllable word and a 4 syllable word since he can shrink small and grow very large. The fact that the author came up with patterns for 20 different characters is insane. Major kudos to him.

Overall, this is a must read for Marvel and Shakespeare fans! It would make a great gift as well.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jessica (@oddandbookish)

Connect with me!

Goodreads | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok

Rating: ★★★★★

I received this book for free from the publisher (Quirk Books) in exchange for an honest review.

OMG this book was hilarious! Mean Girls is one of my all time favorite movies so I was so excited to read this book.

This book is basically the entire Mean Girls movie turned into a Shakespearean play. The author did an amazing job translating it into a Shakespeare play. All the iconic lines (“You go Glen Coco!”, “The limit does not exist”, etc.) were given a Shakespeare makeover. Even “Jingle Bell Rock” which is played in the iconic Christmas show scene got translated.

The author also did a good job putting in stage directions. The movie does jump around a lot and the author managed to make it work by utilizing a balcony. I totally want to see this play come to life on the stage!

The book also has cute little illustrations throughout which were a nice touch.

If you are not familiar with Shakespearean plays, the author does include some helpful notes at the end that explain the elements.

Basically, I loved how the book made Shakespeare so accessible to modern reader by combining it with a movie a lot of people know and love. It helps makes Shakespeare less intimidating.

Overall, this is a must read for all Mean Girls and/or Shakespeare fans. I also recommend it for people looking for an introduction to Shakespeare but may not be ready for his actual work.