Publication Date - June 2016
4 stars
The Hogarth Shakespeare Project, run by Hogarth Press, involves well-known authors rewriting Shakespeare's plays into modern tales. I surprisingly enjoyed the first (a take on The Winter's Tale written by Jeanette Winterson) very much. The Taming of the Shrew is probably my favorite Shakespeare play so I had high expectations for this retelling. These expectations were mostly met. Kate Battista, approaching the age of thirty, lives with her brilliant scientist father and self-involved younger sister. She holds a job at a preschool that she really doesn't enjoy and is constantly in trouble for being a little too honest with the kids and parents. Kate is about as prickly as they come and definitely hard to like. Enter Pyotr, another brilliant scientist from an unnamed country who serves as her father's assistant. Pyotr's visa is about to expire and her father is desperate to not lose his assistant so he proposes that Kate should marry Pyotr. This plot should not work (and does at times veer into the absurd) but I found myself pulled into the story of the shrew who finds her match. It is also nice to be reminded of a classic work that I enjoyed so much in the past. I'm having fun with this series so far and look forward to seeing how the other author's retell these classic plays. I received an ARC of this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review.
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