Hey everyone! Since I've lived in an English-speaking country for long enough, I've decided to start writing book reviews in English along with my usual posts in Spanish. Depending on how much work it is and how it is received, I will consider writing other things in English like my restaurant reviews and travel tips (if I ever go on holiday again). To begin, I will write about the first book I finished from my 2022 Reading Challenge, which was from February's theme: a play. So here we go!
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
Summary: The play covers a few plotlines, mainly the one about a couple of lovers, Hermia and Lysander, who are planning to run away to be together due to Hermia's engagement to Demetrius, who she doesn't love. Hermia's friend Helena is in love with Demetrius, so she confesses her friend's plan in an attempt to gain Demetrius' love. In the meantime, a group of townspeople are preparing themselves and practicing to present an old greek play, which ends up being more comical than dramatic. At the same time, the king and queen of the fairies get in an argument, which causes the following misunderstandings. Lysander and Demetrius fall in love with Helena, while the queen of the fairies, Titania, falls in love with one of the human actors. At the end, everything goes back to normal, although everyone ends up feeling very confused by the previous night's events.
Review: I think this is THE classic comedy of misunderstandings, one of the most well-known plays by Shakespeare, although I do think most people only know what it is about rather than having read it. Anyways, it took me two tries to really understand what the story is about, and only in my second attempt (the first one having been in Spanish and way too young) I could appreciate the beauty of the language and the poetry of the author. I still didn't completely get all the story, and I will admit my reason to read this was to expand on my Shakespeare knowledge, which is very poor for a Literature graduate; but I really think it's worth reading to fully grasp all the elements of the play, the characters, and the language. I quite liked the elements of fantasy and magic added to the romance plot, but the combination of plot lines and Shakespeare's English made it a hard read for me.
Score: 7/10. I definitely liked the story but it wasn't a lifechanging experience for me. Although there are a lot of nice quotable phrases.
Generally I like to consider whether books have an index or a chapter list when I rate them, and I normally take points off if they don't, but I will ignore it in this case because plays have a different format to novels. Also, obviously there are no spoilers in this review because this play is way too old and, as I mentioned before, most people know or have heard of the play so it's like revealing the ending of Romeo and Juliet. But if I do include spoilers, the section will be clearly marked. I promise.
I hope you like this first attempt, I feel like it took me too long to take the decision to write in English but here I am now. Ready to join the world of English-speaking bookbloggers. Anyways, I think this is all for today. I'm working hard on my reading challenge, plus other books I had pending, so there should be more reviews in the upcoming weeks. That is if I don't procrastinate, nap, or avoid writing altogether. So yeah, this is it. See you soon and keep reading!
