I thought that this was a very creative book. I loved seeing everything through Lavinia in a way, because it felt like it did give her a voice, even if she couldn't share and rewrite her stories like the other three girls were able to. I liked the way that Ophelia stood up for her retelling, because as much as I wish it could've been happier for her, she did give herself more agency throughout the story, as well as more time with her mother.

Joy McCollough's latest novel unites the young women of Shakespeare's tragedies (Romeo & Juliet's Juliet, Hamlet's Ophelia, and King Lear's Cordelia) in the room under the stage trapdoor. McCollough employs unorthodox storytelling methods, alternating between poems and a stage show-style script.
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Through this, the dead girls from Shakespeare finally tell their side of the story, from much-maligned Juliet attempting to redeem herself, to Ophelia acknowledging the plot holes, to Cordelia lamenting her circumstances. What's really interesting, though, is how the girls discuss the way that their stories (in particular their deaths) have been fetishized through the centuries. My favorite of the subplots in this book was that of Juliet trying to redeem herself, because she is often criticized for rushing into a relationship, but she explains the reasoning behind her actions, and I don't think anybody has ever seen the story of Romeo and Juliet in that light. McCollough also toys with the agency (or lack thereof) that these girls had in the plays, and how we can acknowledge their mortality without fetishizing it.
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This book is at turns darkly funny, poetic, and emotional as it both celebrates Shakespeare and looks at his works with a critical eye, as well as examining how we have been taught to interpret these stories. People who grew up on Shakespeare like I did are going to love this, but I think all can appreciate it.
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This was oddly touching, I have to admit I cried on more than one occasion, especially over Lavinia… Certainly this will be staged itself at some point, and it should.

(Book read and review given in 2023, I'm just super bad at uploading to NetGalley). Enter the Body is a breathtakingly original take on a very overdone genre. Shakespeare retellings stretch across hundreds of years, yet books that focus on the raw pain of Shakespeare's girls are few and far between. I wish that Lavinia had more of a voice in the book (pun? intended? maybe?), because her story is the most devastating to me personally, but I really enjoyed the focus that these girls were given. More than a few tears were shed as I read.

A smart, elegant deconstruction of the Bard and his unluckiest leading ladies, Enter the Body is a compassionate take on gender in Shakespeare's world and one that seeks to reclaim the narrative. While it's not perfect, Enter the Body is clearly a labour of love, a labour of love for more of a win than a loss (bad pun very much intended).

It was very creative, and I was very excited for this one. However, it didn't quite live up to my expectations--maybe I wanted too much from it, or maybe I was expecting just something I little different. This might be a book I have to reread to give another chance though!

This book was so interesting and beautifully written. I loved that it gave power and voice to the women of Shakespeare who were often silenced. I never knew how true that was until I got to hear their voices. I don’t think you necessarily have to know the plays to enjoy this, but I think if I had been even more familiar with them my love for this story would be endless. I look forward to revisiting it in the future.

I was not a fan of this book--despite how much I was looking forward to it.

I did not think that teens without knowledge of the plays would connect with the text. I found it confusing to understand why they were doing the things that they were. What was motivating them? They were oddly one-dimensional to me in their drive to be more fully-realized.

I am not sure what to think of this play/novel. It is a delightful creative writing exercise and an interesting read for those familiar with these Shakespearean characters. I don't know that readers unfamiliar with the plays will understand --or care-- about what's happening.
I like the idea of these young women "support[ing] each other and reclaim[ing] their stories in the aftermath of trauma," but again, readers not familiar with the trauma might not learn enough from this text to really understand that theme.
Overall, I enjoyed the read and would recommend it to my theater geeks.

I really loved the concept of this novel and it was entertaining for Shakespeare nerds like myself. It was an intriguing idea and at times it may have stumbled (Lavinia being silenced was odd), I enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC; all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This was one of the most creative books I have read in a long time. I loved the premise! We all have studied Shakespeare is school or seen his plays or even film adaptations of his works and we think we know the stories. The author puts a unique spin on some of these tales and turns them on their head. Well done!

Shakespeare’s iconic heroines are reimagined in this fascinating poetic narrative that challenges the original stories, lives, and endings written for them by the Bard himself. Joy McCullough writing is a breath of fresh air and life back into the heroines’ famous tragedies. Control of their narrative is relinquished to them as they decide how to share their tales with each other and decide if or how they would dream to change anything.

Juliet, Cordelia, Ophelia, and Lavinia find themselves in the dark and quiet hidden space beneath the stage of where their deaths all took place. Countless productions. Countless times they’ve died. Over and over again because that was the ending Shakespeare intended for them. As they look around at each other and all the other women from the Bard’s plays that have been snubbed, betrayed, and condemned, the silence between the women is finally broken. The four heroines recount their lives and deaths. But what if they were their own authors? That thought guides them as they discover what decisions they’d change. Some things would stay the same. And at the end of the play, who’s alive? Who’s to blame? What does it matter if the choice is theirs? But maybe choosing is enough…

Enter the Body was a fantastic read! I loved it and highly recommend it to anyone and everyone who has a passion for Shakespeare or poetry. It’s a perfect reclamation of narrative and reimagining of characters who have always deserved a greater spotlight.

The famous dead women of Shakespeare's plays take control of their own stories by taking turns and retelling them how they wish they had ended.

The first half of this book dragged a bit for me, but once the characters began to rewrite the endings to their stories, that's when I became invested and wanted to read on. I loved how short and quick this book was too, as well as the way it was set up. I read it in one day as I listened to it on audio. I really loved how it was a full cast audio, and how each girl had their own time to shine. The biggest downfall to this was that Lavinia never got to tell her story, and remained silenced through out the story, which sucked.

I thought this was FASCINATING. It gave these four girls a chance to rewrite their tragic endings and tell THEIR side of the story. I thought it was so good.

Also, when he wrote tragedies, he wrote TRAGEDIES. Can these girls catch a damn BREAK?

This was a good quick read that makes a lot of points about the way women are treated. It follows the young girls who die in Shakespeare plays, and narrates it as if every production of the play is them reliving what happens even though it’s not even on stage that they are killed.

Enter the Body was an amazing and moving read! Written in verse, I read the book in only a couple hours. I think the style works really well for the story McCullough is trying to tell, especially as it plays with the works of Shakespeare. One really cool aspect of the storytelling was how each girl told her story in a slightly different style. My favorite parts though were the scenes set beneath the trap door. Watching these girls in turn argue and support each other in ways they never could in the original material was beautiful and moving. I loved how she adapted the women and girls of Shakespeare's plays. Juliet, Ophelia, Cordelia, and Lavinia wanted different things from their stories and their new tellings allowed them to find that.

If you're a fan of the musical six, then you've seen this general idea before. Young women reclaim their stories and help each other through struggles and trauma as they retell the stories of their lives. The same is different here but with the dead girls of Shakespeare's stories and I loved it! It was very enjoyable and told in a way that I have not seen another story done. I highly recommend picking this up.

DNF

So I’ve tried to read this book multiple times and every time I’ve attempted to read it I immediately give up. It’s not an issue with the writing but I have very little background when it comes to Shakespeare so when I was reading the stories of each of the girls I simply had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t an issue with the book but with my lack of general understanding when it comes to Shakespeare.

This book was a DNF for me--I don't know if it is my sorely lacking knowledge of Shakespeare that impeded my enjoyment of it, or something else. I'm going to blame myself, because I usually love Joy McCullough's stuff. Sorry. :(

I really, really enjoyed this read. Told mostly in poetry and a smidge in prose, Enter the Body lets the murdered young women of some of Shakespeare's most famous plays talk to each other. In the liminal space between performances, Juliet, Cordelia, and Ophelia swap their stories and slowly bond over the injustices they have faced, all while Shakespeare's first murdered girl, Lavinia, watches. Since I'm still traumatized by the one production of Titus Andronicus I've seen, I'm just happy someone remembers what happened to Lavinia. The story mainly stands as a critique of how Shakespeare tended to fridge his female leads. If you are familiar with the plays, this will be a fantastic, feminist critique of one of the world's most famous authors.