Thank you to Tor Publishing and NetGalley for sending me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I'm a sucker for Shakespeare retellings in general but especially Twelfth Night. The 1996 adaption (With Tobey Stephens doing the absolute most) was my introduction to The Bard and I've been hooked ever since. I also love a prickly heroine so this felt like it was meant for me.
Review: I'm sad to say that I DNF'd the book at around 8 percent. The book is written in present tense-first person, switching from Orsino and Viola's POV's. While this does give you some interesting insights into their feeling (Especially about their "stations" in life), I found that I didn't really enjoy being in their heads. And I don't mean just Viola, my angry little nugget but Jack as well. Also, I was hoping for some of the spark and humor that the play had but I didn't see it. Perhaps it comes later in the book. Admittedly, my executive function has been on the fritz and I might be burned out on YA so it's not entirely this book's fault. Maybe I'll return to this in the future but for now, it's a no for me.
Now, it that's all you wanted to know, you can skip the rest of it but I'm gonna ramble about why I will probably feel overprotective about this book.
So both leads of this book are POC. Viola is Latine (Possibly afro-Latine, I didn't get that far) and Jack is Black. As mainstream as nerd culture has gotten over the past few years, it's still shockingly rare to see BIPOC faces showcased. At the red carpet on the 2018 movie, Solo: A Star Wars story, star Thandie Newton wore a dress with drawings of all of the Black Star Wars characters at that time. Including herself, it was less than 10 people. And that's still not mentioning the vitriolic hatred the Fandom Menace spews whenever someone not a white dude gets showcased.
As someone who remembers who hard it was to be a BIPOC female teen, it's really hard to be in a space and love something that doesn't make you feel safe. That doesn't seem to love you back and we see that in Vi's anger.
Yes, Vi is prickly to the point of unlikeable in this. Granted, I didn't finish it so I don't know how far she goes but I remember being her. I thankfully had the safe places to geek out about SFF with my guy friends but yeah, it was rough. I remember the need to prove myself to people who didn't matter, acting as gatekeeper to newcomers, the frustration at everything. And I was fat so while I didn't deal with the Nice Guys hitting on me, it still sucked. Also who wasn't incredibly annoying as a teenager? Again, I remember being a teen and respectfully, I was the worst.
I'm really glad that we're getting a book with BIPOC teens in these spaces and talking about the racist, sexist (Internalized and otherwise) in the geeky spaces. Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me, which is fine!
Twelfth Night comes out May 28th, 2024.
TW: Racism, sexism, injury,
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