Book: Kissing Shakespeare

 

Author: Pamela Mingle

 

Genre: Fiction/Teen/Time Travel/Historical/Romance

 

Summary: Miranda has Shakespeare in her blood; she hopes one day to become a Shakespearean actor like her famous parents. At least, she does until her disastrous performance in her school’s staging of The Taming of the Shrew. Humiliated, Miranda skips the opening-night party. All she wants to do is hide. Fellow cast member Stephen Langford has other plans for Miranda. When he steps out of the backstage shadows and asks her if she like to meet Shakespeare, Miranda thinks he’s a total nutcase. But before she can object, Stephen whisks her back to sixteenth-century England - the world he’s really from. He wants Miranda to use her acting talents and modern-day charms on the young Will Shakespeare - who is showing alarming signs of taking a very different path in life. Without her help, Stephen claims, the world’s greatest plays will never be written. Miranda isn’t convinced that she’s the girl for the job. Why would Shakespeare care about her? And just who is this infuriating time traveler, Stephen Langford? Still, she reluctantly agrees to help. After all, Stephen promises that once Miranda’s part is played, he will return her to the present and she can get on with her “real” life. What Miranda doesn’t bargain for is finding true love … with no acting required. - Random House, 2013.

Miranda is the teenage daughter of a pair of Shakespearean actors. She loves the stage, but how can she ever hope to live up to her mother, let alone excel? Does she even want to? When her first performance as Katherina, in The Taming of the Shrew, doesn't go well, Miranda can hardly bear to attend the cast party. She has let her parents down—and herself. So when a fellow cast member calls on her to join him in a strange and mysterious quest to save Shakespeare and his works, Miranda plays along, only to find herself transported to the 16th century, where views of women are only some of the challenges she faces.

 

Mingle's touch is deft, the cultural clashes alternately humorous and dramatic, and the characters both believable and appealing. Definitely one for the keeper shelf.

 

Note that this book is marketed as YA. Also that I interviewed the author regarding a later book, which I did not rate or review as a result even though I loved it. But this review reflects my honest opinion, and I did purchase the book.

Review: Miranda has spent her life growing up with Shakespeare. So when Stephen, boy from her drama group, offers her the chance to travel back in time, meet William Shakesperae and keep him on a writing path. This leads to her taking on the disguise of Stephen’s sister, Olivia (but for purposes of continuity, she will only be known as Miranda throughout this review), dodging religious fanatics of Elizabethan times, and as the title suggests, kissing ShakespeareTime travel stories involving real people are always nice to read. I wasn’t sure if I’d love it, but the premise was interesting to fans of romance, historical, and Shakespeare alike.It starts off really quickly, which is nice. We get an establishing scene of Miranda working playing Kate in her school’s production of The Taming of the Shrew, but it’s obvious that this isn’t the point. Miranda’s love for Shakespeare’s plays is revealed as we go further on, saving boring character building and working it into the plot.It’s really fun how Miranda and Stephen have to try not to be discovered having dropped in from modern day America. Miranda’s reactions to actually being in 1581 are understandable, and even more understandable are Miranda’s actions when adjusting to life in the 14th century and when she is told that she’ll be seducing Shakespeare. I wouldn’t want to be pulled back to a time when women are seen as possessions or suddenly be told to chat up my idol either.Miranda develops a bit. She becomes more mature over the course of Kissing Shakespeare, and a bit more interesting. The other characters are also good, Stephen and William especially. The other supporting ones are interesting, but not that great.The plot is good, without being overshadowed by the romance, even if that was part of the main plot. Shakespeare being tempted to join the church was a major part. It wasn’t all that interesting though. This is a rare book where I enjoy the romance more than anything else.I found it really cute seeing Miranda and William work together on The Taming of the Shrew, with him telling her the early version and she telling him the lines that she’s learnt, hundreds of years later. This then creates an awkward paradox which, quite simply, makes my head hurt. There’s one scene in which Miranda goes off with Shakespeare, being fairly successful in her task of seducing William. And they get kind of on. and then he calls her Anne. Way to kill the mood. But it also is a nice bit of character building for him, especially as we know that he ends up marrying Anne Hathaway. It also furthers their relationship, as just friends. The romance between Stephen and Miranda is done nicely.Overall: Strength 3 tea to a book with good potential, but not amazing results.

I was fully expecting this to be a fun, cute timetraveling story. And luckily I had been warned by some reviews that this might not be the case after all, otherwise I would have been more disappointed than I was now.

My problems started when I couldn't really connect to Miranda. To be honest, I thought she was annoying and seemed rather spoiled and just one of those girls I would have avoided in high school. Then within a couple of pages, Stephen GRABS her and takes her to the 16th century. After which she just sort of submits to what he wants and doesn't seem to really have a backbone. She was constantly in tears because Stephen was not being a gentleman and pushing her to do the thing he brought her there for. I just wanted to shake her at times.

And can I just say that I was really annoyed at all the mandhandling going on? I mean, I know that women didn't have much say in things in the 16th century, but men used to have a modicum of respect for them, right? Stephen just drags Miranda everywhere, I would have kicked him in a special place if he did that to me.
Also, the working her modern-day charms on Shakespeare in the summary is code for seducing him. I was rolling my eyes at this solution to all the problems, cause it seems like such a guy thing to want to solve everything with physical intimacies. Because of course it's much better than just talking about stuff. Yeah...

Minor spoiler, but of course Stephen serves as an alternate love interest and I could just not get into this storyline. He blows hot and cold and is just not really nice to Miranda most of the time and well, HE'S FORCING HER TO HAVE INTERCOUSE WITH SOMEONE ELSE. To me that would be a major deal breaker. But Miranda seems to be ok with this. I thought Shakespeare was a much more charming character and it would have seemed more likely that she would fall in love with him for real instead of just trying to seduce him.

A lot of the religious struggle in England of the 16th century comes into play and this adds a pretty dark factor to the story. I think I kept reading to find out how they would turn events about and because while I very much disliked the main characters, Pamela Mingle does weave an interesting story and it might also have to do with my stubborn streak in not wanting to give up on this book.

I love a good timetraveling romance, but this was just not all that romantic and spineless main characters aren't my favourite to read about. I do think it had a lot of potential, it was just a bit too convoluted to really take off.

My rating: 2 stars

Cross posted here and at my blog: Take Me Away...First I want to start off by saying this book isn't what I would normally read. I am one of those people that HATES history. I have to be honest and admit, the only reason I read this was because of the title... I mean the thought of kissing the man who wrote "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and better yet, "Romeo and Juliet"?! *SWOONNNNNNNN* So I gave it a chance.... And I'm so glad I did. Shakespeare has been a part of Miranda's life as long as she can remember. She is the daughter of two extremely talented, world known actors and hopes to one day become one as well. Then one day after performing in the play "The Taming of the Shrew," she feels that she didn't do a good enough job so she hides from the cast. But one of the members finds her, and changes her world upside down. He tells her she is the one who must save the world's greatest play wright, by seducing him. For the story to have such an exciting plot though, it moved slowly to me. Granted I was moved right to 16th century England from Mingle's words, but it seemed a little boring. I felt like a real girl during that time, doing nothing. I understand it was a romance novel, but a little plot twists or something would have made it a little more interesting. I was awed by the way Mingle was able to pull me into Miranda and Stephen's world. By the way they characters talk and act shows that she definitely did her research for her story. I like when it is evident in the story that the author did their homework. It shows that they wanted every detail covered and really wanted to transport the reader to the time their story is set. Overall, it turned out to be less than what I thought it was about, which kind of disappointed me. I guess I'll leave it there to avoid spoilers.