'The Dead Father's Club' by Matt Haig is an interesting take on Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' but I really disliked the writing style. Although I understand that the narrator is an eleven year-old, it was written exactly as 'The Room' by Emma Donoghue is, who's narrator is five years old. I really can't engage with novels that are written in a childlike manner, and this in particular just struck me as too childlike for someone of that age.
Some of my favourite novels have children as the main characters ('Coraline' and 'The Book of Lost Things') but sadly this one wasn't for me.

~Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this title~

This book was kind of addicting! I really enjoyed the POV of an 11-year-old boy, it was so funny and interesting. It also dealt with a lot of heavy topics, which. I was surprised by, I also felt like this was such a unique concept, even though I didn’t always like how it was implemented. I think I would have liked it more if it was more focussed on the ghosts themselves instead of the boy trying to get revenge for his father.

I thought The Dead Fathers Club was excellent. It's a very well-done reworking of Hamlet through the eyes of Philip, an 11-year-old boy whose father has been killed in a road accident, leaving his mother to run their pub in Newark, Nottinghamshire. Uncle Alan, his father's brother has designs on both his mother and the pub and Philip's father appears as a ghost, telling him that Alan arranged the crash and demanding that Philip exact revenge.

I found the whole thing gripping, insightful and touching. Philip's narrative voice is completely believable, as is the story with events and characters recognisable from Hamlet but very cleverly adapted to Philip's modern-day school and home life. Haig doesn't follow the play slavishly (so we are spared the corpse-strewn finale, for example) but its themes and insights are there, including the question of whether Philip really is seeing the things he describes or whether they are the product of a disturbed mind.

In short, this is another excellently written, engrossing and very humane book from Matt Haig. Very warmly recommended.

(My thanks to Canongate Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)