Review: Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George

Publication Date: September 19th 2017
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Pages: 432 pages

Six teenagers’ lives intertwine during one thrilling summer full of romantic misunderstandings and dangerous deals in this sparkling retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
After she gets kicked out of boarding school, seventeen-year-old Beatrice goes to her uncle’s estate on Long Island. But Hey Nonny Nonny is more than just a rundown old mansion. Beatrice’s cousin, Hero, runs a struggling speakeasy out of the basement—one that might not survive the summer. Along with Prince, a poor young man determined to prove his worth; his brother John, a dark and dangerous agent of the local mob; Benedick, a handsome trust-fund kid trying to become a writer; and Maggie, a beautiful and talented singer; Beatrice and Hero throw all their efforts into planning a massive party to save the speakeasy. Despite all their worries, the summer is beautiful, love is in the air, and Beatrice and Benedick are caught up in a romantic battle of wits that their friends might be quietly orchestrating in the background.

Much Ado About Nothing has to be my favourite Shakespeare. I love the sass, the banter, the characters - and that love affair can be traced back to the Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson adaptation in the 90s which I still love re-watching. So when I came across Angie's review (which essentially was a love letter to this retelling) it was a no brainer that of course I was going to pick it up.

With such high hopes and a dizzying array of nerves (how could the story really work transplanted into the 1920s?) I was nervous when I opened to the first page, but within the first few sentences I was laughing and most of the way to falling in love with Benedick Scott, and utterly utterly smitten.

This cast of characters is utterly glorious. McKelle has taken the essence of the play, and then filled it with her own glorious originality and charm. It is funny, biting, the characters are real and wonderful and flawed, and I fell in love with each of them over the course of the book. She shows the original wit, and then plumbs each character for new depths, compelling, complex, shades of grey instead of black and white. I adored the new facets given to John and Maggie for example, turning them into complex and fascinating people that I wanted to spend more time with.

Not since Blue and her boys in The Raven Cycle have I fallen so hard and fast for a misfit group. They stole my heart and I found myself in turns laughing and then moved to tears at this beautiful and fresh retelling. There is lightness, romance and humour certainly, but McKelle twists that deftly with hardship and raw grit and emotion. This story has hard edges beneath the softness and humour, and it makes it all the more powerful and beautiful.


(Side note: Chapter titles created from original bits of dialogue from the play? BE STILL MY HEART.)

In short, this book is wonderful. Ultimately this will be one of my favourite reads of the year, and will be gifted to several people at Christmas to spread the joy and beauty of this book. It is a gem of a book, one that I will return to repeatedly, and one that deserves more notice than it has received.
Read it. Read it now.

Review: Illusionarium by Heather Dixon

Publication Date: May 19^th 2015
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Length: 368 pages

What if the world holds more dangers—and more wonders—than we have ever known? And what if there is more than one world? From Heather Dixon, author of the acclaimed Entwined, comes a brilliantly conceived adventure that sweeps us from the inner workings of our souls to the far reaches of our imaginations.
Jonathan is perfectly ordinary. But then—as every good adventure begins—the king swoops into port, and Jonathan and his father are enlisted to find the cure to a deadly plague. Jonathan discovers that he's a prodigy at working with a new chemical called fantillium, which creates shared hallucinations—or illusions. And just like that, Jonathan is knocked off his path. Through richly developed parallel worlds, vivid action, a healthy dose of humor, and gorgeous writing, Heather Dixon spins a story that calls to mind The Night Circus and Pixar movies, but is wholly its own.

I absolutely loved Heather Dixon’s debut novel ‘Entwined’ a retelling of the tale of the twelve dancing princesses, and have been eagerly awaiting her next novel since then. Which meant there were an awful lot of expectations to live up to before I even opened the book.

Jonathan is a wonderful protagonist. With so many female protagonists it was great to see such an incredible book with a boy at its heart. He’s proper and polite (some of the dialogue and exclamations had me laughing out loud) and funny – best use of footnotes I’ve seen since Jonathan Stroud and Jasper Fforde. And he’s an all around kind and determined young man. He never stops trying to fight to save those he loves, even if that does mean his compass goes a little off course at points.

The supporting characters are also amazing – I loved Lockwood particularly. I kind of want another book that is just Lockwood and Jonathan fighting and bantering. He is genius, and I want to give him hugs, all the hugs.

I had forgotten, as it has been a while since I read ‘Entwined’ just how terrifying Dixon can make things. Illusionarium is definitely very dark and twisted, but it’s done in quite a light way – it’s hard to explain! But I definitely wasn’t expecting to be as terrified reading this as I was. It felt like quite an exciting, colourful journey to start with but the further enmeshed in the story you became the more it tilted into some terrifying carnival of horrors.

I had no real idea what the story would be about going in, and I’m not going to spoil it for you here because it’s quite an exciting story that takes you places that you would never expect. Just know that it is brilliantly written, hugely imaginative, fantasy, dystopia and steampunk all rolled up into one, with a wonderful hero at its heart. Plus, there is very minimal romance, which in the current trend of romance! Love triangles! Is a different and wonderful choice. It meant that there was much more focus on the story without the distraction element of a romance subplot, and it made quite a refreshing change. There's lots of other love though, most notably sibling love and family love and it is so awesome to see a novel only looking at that.
The other refreshing change? It appears to be a standalone. I love that Dixon has created two such wildly different stand alone stories in a world where we are being inundated with series.

This is something very different from what you are probably imagining from the blurb, and also from everything else I’ve read this year. A uniquely brilliant and imaginative story that gets incredibly dark and twisted at points and had me feverishly reading to find out how on earth it all ended. This is a wonderful follow up novel to Dixon’s stunning debut and I cannot wait to see what she writes next.

If you're curious, don't forget to check out the incredible book trailer that Heather created herself - I blogged about it here!