"Life's too short for reading things that aren't for you." What Denis Mina said in an interview, and a belief I adhere to religiously. I read around 80 pages of Hamnet and gave up. I don't have a clue why this book has received so many accolades. The writing is florid, formulaic and clichéd and the characters are flat and stereotypical (I mean seriously, a wicked stepmother??). The flatness is intensified by a relentless use of third person point of view.

The author has a strong proclivity for presenting her similes and descriptive phrases in threes, and I could not stop counting them, which became extremely annoying. I also have a personal distaste for falconry, and although it's of its time in this book, I didn't like reading about it as Anne Hathaway's hobby (witch/huntress...another stereotype).

I read Mantel's Mirror and the Light earlier this year, which was set in a slightly earlier time period, but sill late Renaissance, and Hamnet suffers in comparison. I wish Mantel had written this book, because I feel certain Shakespeare would have become a living, breathing character instead of an empty caricature.

I came across a review that ended: "Overwritten, overwrought, overhyped" and that summarizes my sentiments exactly.