While there are many bright spots in the prose, the overall story was too far fetched and disjointed. I didn’t truly care much about Hamnet. He was a flat character I never really felt drawn to. Anne/Agnes’ story was sort of interesting, but again not fully believable or endearing. Many half stories throughout. Still not clear why the name Hamnet being change to Hamlet was such an intolerable thing.
I have questions: are these half stories part of the point, that we really don’t know what was real or not? Was the Latin Tutor never named because there are questions if Shakespeare was the true author of the works? Was Anne/Agnes given powers that were considered unnatural because she was supposed to be a magical inspiration for the plays? And my big question – why should I care?
