3 stars


I think this book is not for middle grade book as there are some lgbtq representation in the book. It was challenging to read this.
I will pass this book a 3 stars as i enjoyed some of the important topics shared in the book.


Thank you for the lovely advance copy Netgallery !

The concept of this book was great and the author attempted to include diverse characters. But it's not true representation to hint at sexual orientation. Representation should be explicit rather than something readers have to search for.

2.5 stars

"The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life" didn't really do anything wrong and I really liked the concept, but it didn't really do anything great either.

Character-development is almost non-existent, seemingly important plot points are introduced and then never really resolved in any meaningful way and the whole novel seems like it could have done with at least another hundred pages to really feel fully fledged out.

I was excited about this one based on the synopsis, but it ended up being just an okay read for me, kind of meh. Great LGQBT representation, and a very accurate representation of the high school experience for a teen but this one just didn’t stick out for me like I had hoped.

My favorite parts of the books were things that made me pick it up to read in the first place — being based on a play, a relatable YA to read with my teen, a quick and easy read. I’m still glad I read the title but not a favorite of mine.

This was a short, cute read, and I enjoyed the overall story line. The main character, Alison, is busy contesting for the Valedictorian title, when she gets roped into producing the school play for her senior year. However, things turn out to be far more difficult than she could have imagined and she ends up having to question what's truly important to her.

Alison was an enjoyable main character, but I believe she could have been more fleshed out. In fact, despite liking all the characters in the book, I didn't love any of them, and I don't think they stood out as much as they should have. I would have liked to have seen more about each of the side characters and their stories, rather than only hearing about them through Alison's encounters. In addition, despite this being a YA book, it read more like a middle grade to me.

The plot flowed well over the course of the book and I did like seeing how the story progressed but I also feel like it was predictable, and a lot of it was based on miscommunications and assumptions which is a trope I really don't like. That being said, I did enjoy it and it was a quick and easy read, it just fell a little flat for me.

I was given this book as an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

To coronate her valedictorian dreams, Alison agrees to help producing her school’s production of <i>A Midsummer Night’s Dream </i> with no previous theatre knowledge. She soon finds herself trapped in this commitment as she tries to navigate her feelings for Charlotte and an awkward misunderstanding with her oldest friend Jack.
With the help of some loyal friends, she manages to recruit fellow students for various roles in the play, as she tries to find her path in her last year of high school and successfully achieve what she has been working towards for so long.

The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life is a light-hearted coming of age story with a fast-paced tone, which makes it an ideal choice for young readers of the YA genre with an interest in lgbtq+ representation.

I’ve heard it’s great and I would love to actually review it but unfortunately my phone won’t allow me to open the books on net galley I will be questioning people about this but until then there will be seven books with this message written! BUY IT THOUGH! They are pretty and I’ve heard great things!

A sweet, interesting YA contemporary, albeit one I just couldn't get into. Novels featuring young women-loving women can be hard to find so I was understandably excited to discover this fun-looking read. I'm sure I would've enjoyed it if I had read it earlier in the year, however, after reading a number of YA high school romance books in a row, I found it hard to enjoy this one as much as I otherwise might've. I found the characters a little bland and juvenile, and it failed to capture my interest in the first few chapters. This led me to DNF the book at around 100 pages. I'm sure many other readers enjoyed it as a fun, light-hearted read with some valuable queer representation, however it just wasn't for me. From what I read, I also think many younger teen readers would enjoy this book.

All Alison wants is to be valedictorian of her high school class. To that end, she lets herself be convinced to be the producer of her school's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But it turns out the job entails much more than was initially described, andAlison feels like her world has been suddenly turned upside down. Now Alison is juggling her oldest friend (who her best friend has a crush on) wanting to go out with her, while Alison herself is reckoning with a crush on the girl playing Titania, and trying to stop the play and her valedictorian dreams from crashing all around her.

I really enjoyed this book. Every character feels like their own person, and their relationships and struggles feel so real. As a theater kid in high school, reading this made me feel so nostalgic. Jansen really nails the emotions and experiences that came with putting on a play back then. Jansen writes so authentically about a diverse group of teenagers brought together by a common cause, and draws readers right into their world.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life is a fun read, but unfortunately it just wasn't for me.

I knew I was going to fall in love with this book the moment that I read the title and it absolutely blew me away. I loved everything from the characters, to the atmosphere, to the plot. Every aspect of this book came together to form this wonderful book that I wish I had read as a teenager and that I think will be really important to many teenagers today.

The characters are all really well rounded and individual, but they have some great dynamics and friendships. They are not perfect, they make mistakes and have to deal with the consequences of their actions, and they really show that this is okay and that the world won't end because they did something that they regret now, like accidentally agreeing to a date. Alison, the protagonist, in particular shows this with her dating misadventures and the hurdles that she constantly has to overcome with the production of the play.

This book is all about a group of misfits putting on a school play of A Midsummer Night's Dream while dealing with all the drama of school life behind the scenes. The cover and title really holds true to the comedy and the atmosphere that Shakespeare's comedic plays possess and it was so easy to get lost in the world. I found myself constantly rooting for the play to go well, for the relationships to happen, for the characters themselves to learn and grow.

The main and side characters all give a really diverse look at teenagers and people in general. There are several LGBT+ and POC characters who contribute so much to the story. Their sexuality and/or race are important to them, but there are never reduced to this characteristic alone. The characters also show how diverse people can be in their interests, styles, priorities etc., but how people can still come together on common ground for common goals.

I read the whole book in one day, almost in one sitting with just a few breaks in between, and it gave me everything I wanted. Sapphic romance. Great friendships. Shakespearean comedy. Appreciation for the arts. I honestly cannot recommend it enough.

I quite enjoyed The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life. It was a cute, fun quick book that makes you revisit your youth and high school days. Alison was a great character that grew and changed throughout the story. I loved to see her relationship with Charlotte develop though I do feel that at times Charlotte was a bit harsh on Alison. That being said the book had a lot of humour and good LGBTQ+ representation.

Everything about this book seemed perfect for me—which is why I’m so disappointed. I’m not going to be able to finish this book. I tried, but the writing felt so stilted to me and I was really struggling. I liked the concept, but I just really felt that it fell short. It also didn’t read like a teenage voice.

I also am very uncomfortable when stories involve a character forcing or pressuring another character to come out or be more visibly queer....I really don’t like it.

This was really cute! I liked the characters and I enjoyed the plot! It did a great job of showing what high school is like with all the awkwardness and figuring out who you are.

There's a lot going on here. The book has the title and description to wow the reader, to entice us in with very high expectations for the perfect book to break us out of a slump. I wanted so badly to be as swept away by this book that I KNOW this author can do. But that didn't happen. There was just...too much going on. At times, it felt like the author was trying to hit a certain number of SEO topics within the narrative, and that's where she lost me. But I'll still look for this author's other books and future books because she writes characters well. I liked it, didn't love it, but I see a lot in this author. I'll catch the next one.

I was hoping for more from this book and kind of felt disappointed overall. While it was fun at parts, I mostly found myself feeling frustrated at Alison’s behavior and her refusal to communicate with people. While I generally cut characters in YA novels some slack for being immature (they are high schoolers after all) some of this felt like a bit too much even for me.

More so than that, my biggest problems with this book came from what had me excited in the first place - the LGBT relationships. While the characters are diverse and there is a range of sexualities represented, there was a lot of focus on characters feeling like they have to come out at someone else’s pace other than their own. Also, isn’t it time to get rid of the trope where the closeted gay kid overcompensates with hyper masculinity?

I appreciate the opportunity given to me by both NetGalley and the publisher for access to the eARC of this text. I think it will be a fun read for younger high school students, but it just was not the text for me.

This is a novel set in a high school as the primary protagonist, Allison, is suddenly burdened with being the producer for the school play. The novel follows the course of the play through the school year. Allison is a lesbian who is out to a select few people at the start of the play.

I wasn’t quite sure how to review this one - but then I read an article the author wrote about coming out at 39 through the writing of this book ( https://mamanloupsden.com/2020/08/21/the-year-shakespeare-ruined-my-life/ ). This helped me understand parts of the book that were hard for me.

I felt like Allison, a very scholastically driven teenager, had a lot of internalized homophobia that she was trying to address but I actually didn’t feel like it ever was addressed. At one point, when discussing how awesome her parents are, Allison says they told her they’ll love her no matter what. In my opinion, this is not true acceptance because they are saying that there is something that makes them hesitate, there is a big negative “what”, but they love her despite this terrible “what”. This is just one small example. I also think there was oversimplification in the coming out of another character. Additionally, the pressure throughout the book being placed on everyone to come 100% out to everyone feels borderline unsafe. There are situations where someone can’t come out, especially in high school, due to unsafe home situations.

I now understand, through the authors article linked to above, that she has struggled with internalized bi- and homophobia and found her way out of it through writing this book. In my critiques above I want to point out, I am not criticizing the authors journey in anyway, and I’m glad she found this process so freeing. Coming out is hard at any age. And it is great that writing this novel helped Jansen.

Aside from the above, I felt the characters fell a little bit flat. I felt like Allison came off as a very self absorbed person who wasn’t all that kind to her friends. Maybe it was just the overplayed drama of the whole thing.

Thanks so much to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I was really excited to read this, but then just found it kind of disappointing. Everyone just seemed really stereotypical with no depth or characterization. I started to get annoyed by the main character too. So, a quick read with some cute parts, but you could probably find much better YA rom coms to pass the time.

In her quest to become valedictorian, Alison agrees to produce the school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, along with the many disasters that come with it.

Not gonna lie, this was rough. The experience of reading this book was endlessly frustrating, with so many tiny annoyances that I started getting angry about every little thing. The characters didn’t act or talk like real people, let alone real teenagers, and the main character had a serious case of not-like-the-other-girls syndrome.

The most frustrating part of reading this, though, was that there was no life to it. There was no depth, nothing happening underneath the surface, no reason for me to care what was going on. Things just happened, like they were plot points to check off a list, and I could not bring myself to care about any of it.

Not to mention there were a lot of weird messages about coming out, with characters guilt tripping each other, saying that you can’t really be in a relationship if you’re not out, which was uncomfortable. Also, Shakespeare had nothing to do with anything. The play could have been replaced with literally anything else and nothing would have changed.

DNF. Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for this early copy! I decided to not keep reading this one, it was not for me. Thanks!