Clare Reviews: Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

I’ll be honest I wasn’t immediately drawn to this book. Sometimes a books success can put me off. There’s so many books we need to get to, and obviously the very popular books already have been reviewed, quite rightly, so really, we should be reading titles that are perhaps less well known. Finding gems to highlight in our shop is sensible, but, I do have a weakness for Shakespeare. Having studied it for university, the language always staggers me. There’s nothing new to that statement, no explanation needed.

There are snippets of Shakespeare’s life we all know; he married an older woman, who was perhaps illiterate, he had two daughters, his family stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon and he lived in London of course, and he had a son who died aged 11.

Hamnet is focused mainly on Shakespeare’s family, their story, here his wife Anne Hathaway is called Agnes (with a silent g), and we are taken on a journey that fills in all the blanks in the most fascinating way. O’Farrell ‘s research is phenomenal, you can feel the lives of the characters, their hardships, bravery, certainly the harsh reality of life in the 16th century feels incredibly real.

I just couldn’t put it down, is there anything better than being consumed by a book all day desperate to get back to it? Do consider reading Hamnet, I absolutely adored it. However, be prepared to blub, and my goodness I sobbed heaps. It all feels entirely plausible and now I want to learn more about Anne Hathaway, read more work by Maggie O’Farrell, and revisit Shakespeare, which can only be a good thing.