I was surprised with how enthralled by the story and its characters I was. The relationships are well developed and the pacing ensured it didn't drag (with a small exception at the beginning).

This book was SO fantastic, I found myself rereading it twice. I think that anyone who loves the story of Hamlet will be absolutely delighted by this retelling, and will likely find themselves wishing for even more.

Throughout the book I found myself really interested in Hamlet's life, particularly as it was reimagined. The way that Hamlet acts and thinks doesn't stray too terribly far from Shakespeare's original writing, but it possesses this deep, subversive twist that makes it all the more impactful. This book was easily one of my most anticipated reads for all of 2024, and it's safe to say that it has totally satisfied that anticipation! I'm really looking forward to seeing what else this author writes, and I will definitely be sure to scoop up a print copy of this book.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-arc!
I know this is a stunning cover! Not only does the cover give major Hamlet vibes, but it is also so beautiful, literally perfect for a queer Hamlet retelling. And this is everything I wanted when I requested this book. It is a magical and sinister book with amazing characters while staying true to much of the original character's personality. And this is exactly how to do a retelling that keeps the characters very similar to what you would expect but expands on what is already there. This adds so much more background, especially on Ophelia, which I have wanted for so long. For such a classic character as Ophelia, it was amazing to see much more depth and history given to her character.

With a magical twist, Smile and Be a Villian was an intriguing prelude to Hamlet. First of all, I have to admit that I have never finished reading or seeing Hamlet, so I am unable to comment on the play's original meaning or the characters' development. Nevertheless, I found the historical fantasy to be enjoyable on its own. Even if you simply know the very minimum about the play, it's still a fun read, even though I'm sure knowing the original would enhance the experience. The chapters read quickly because of the effortless writing style, and I liked Hamlet and Ophelia as the primary characters. The magical ideas of corruption and sight guides intrigued me as well, and Donlon did a fantastic job of illustrating them as well as Ophelia's dismay and horror at what she sees. But rather than being seen, it seemed like we were constantly informed about how close Hamlet and Ophelia were. This may be partly due to the fact that the two spend most of the book in different locations. There were also occasionally problems with the dialogue, which alternated between being quite modern and Shakespearean. The latter, I'm guessing, were lines from the original play, but they felt so out of place because the rest of the dialogue was written in a different style. All in all, though, even for a Shakespeare newbie like me, this was still an enjoyable read.

Thank you NetGalley and Victory Editing for this ARC Copy!! 4.5 Stars

I do not even know where to start with this book. The cover grabbed me and I was reading it completely blind with no idea what I was getting myself into. I am a big fan of retellings but this is my first Hamlet retelling and I loved it.

I have read Hamlet more than once but honestly I do not really remember it at all at this point so can not say it it is a true retelling or if it takes a lot of liberty's with the story, but what I can say is that I enjoyed every minute of it. It was dark and brutal at times and the world filled with magic, corruption, betrayal, and so much more kept me hooked right from the start.

There are some trigger warnings so definitely be aware of that going in, there is some body horror, animal death (not animal companion), and the brutality of the battle field, but it was all well done and there was no gratuitous violence, but instead everything that happened was really a part of moving the story forward and showing the true brutality of that time period.

This is a cute little Hamlet retelling prequel. It was fun to see the characters be expanded upon and see the characters act in a different scenario. Overall it was fun and cute. I would definitely recommend that you are familiar with Hamel before reading as it just sort of jumps into the story assuming you know all of the characters and the plot of Hamlet.

Smile and Be a Villain adds a new dimension to Hamlet in this queer, fantastical and quite spectacular reimaging of the classic tale.

I adored this fantastical reimagining of Hamlet – which is one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. I do not think I talk enough about just how much I love the Bard and seeing how his works continue to inspire and create dialogue with new stories. Donlon takes the beating heart of Hamlet and reframes it to focus on the bubbling threads of family, trauma and the weight of legacy. It is just exquisitely written. This is such a rich world with a fascinating magical system at play. The way the world is weaved is lush and imaginative & allows the story to go into some wickedly fun territory. There are layers of manipulation which, alongside the fantasy, allow for lines to be blurred further and add that surreality to a narrative steeped in psychological exploration already.

As the author’s note describes, choosing to set this book in a particular timeframe adds a new level of political tension and foreboding to the narrative. It also has this deep sense of pathos in seeing these versions of these characters, with our pre-established views of where their stories will go. You feel an overwhelming sense of inevitability, only for Donlon to trick and surprise you. After all, this is not the story you know. However, I did really enjoy the very meta thread about fate and the endless loop of stories - are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of our past or can we break the cycle?

Also, I have to shout out the fantastic characterisation here. In particular, I really loved Ophelia and Hamlet’s characters here. They had such a different and deeply fascinating take. Donlon adds these extra details that create a new and exciting image. I’m very excited to see where Donlon may take this in the sequel. The character of Fortinbras is given a lot more to play with here, as are Rosencrantz and Guildernstern. It’s extremely exciting to see how it might interact with the play’s events.

Smile and Be a Villain is absolutely fantastic and truly gives a new side to a very familiar tale.

Okay so I’ve been highly anticipating this book ever since I first heard about it and it was so good and honestly above and beyond my expectations. My original Hamlet experience was the classic reading it in a high school literature element (with the bonus element of watching the David Tennant version), and while I didn’t fully connect with it, I have always been a little obsessed with the potential of the elements in the story to go beyond what is strictly written in the text. Reading SABAV was like someone pulled that desire out of my brain and gave it life. This book is written with an intense knowledge and love of Hamlet while also giving space for it to be so much more than what I think people expect from reading Shakespeare. It’s delightful to see the references to the original (especially because this first book takes place before the events of the original play), and seeing what Donlon has done with the source content is so fun. The character tension is high in the best way and it’s so queer in a way that feels so right to the source text. I am not only recommending this book but begging you to read it so that I can have more people to talk about it with, and I am so unbelievably excited to see what happens in the next book!

One of the best things about Hamlet is that there’s drama right from the beginning, and SABAV keeps up the same idea while taking the storyline back to explore what happens before the events of the play we know so well. Things felt intense from the beginning and it made me want to absolutely fly through this book even when I didn’t have time to sit down and read. Hamlet and Ophelia’s family drama, the Denmark Norway situation, elements of magic and Corruption, the impending doom that you can’t help but feel about the characters? It’s amazing. And even though Hamlet is the kind of story where it feels like everyone is doomed no matter what, this book continues to succeed by making you want to read how it happens, and maybe even hope that this time things will turn out okay.

I will admit, the characters that I remember less about from reading Hamlet were a little bit harder to place immediately, but I think that’s more about my desire to understand everything immediately, and I wouldn’t say that you need to read the play in order to understand or enjoy SABAV. Hamlet and Ophelia are especially wonderful, with all the best characterization from the source while also giving them a new level of autonomy within this story that makes it all the more tragic. I also love how we get to see more of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as well as Fortinbras in this rendition, and while I say I might be prepared for the additional heartbreak of knowing more about characters, I am absolutely going to sob when I read the end of this duology.

In some ways, this is exactly the kind of book I’d love, and in some ways it’s a little bit outside of that. Nevertheless, I did love this book and am absolutely frothing at the mouth for the next one to come out! It’s so worth the read and I completely recommend it.

3.5* rounded up

Smile and Be a Villian was an interesting prequel to Hamlet with a fantasy twist.

First things first, I must confess I have never watched/ read Hamlet all the way through, so I can't comment on it in relation to the original play/ characterisation, but I did still enjoy it as a historical fantasy in its own right. Whilst I imagine knowing the original play will add to the experience, it's still an enjoyable read even when knowing only the bare minimum.

I found the writing style very easy-to-read (the pages seemed to fly by), and enjoyed Hamlet and Ophelia as our main characters. I also found the magical concepts of Corruption and Sight Guides interesting, and Donlon did a great job of depicting this and showing Ophelia's horror / disgust at what she can see.

However, it felt like we were told a lot about how close Hamlet and Ophelia were, rather than shown. This might be largely because the two are not actually in the same place for the majority of the book.

And I never got a good understanding of a lot of the secondary characters (such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern), with their depictions not feeling particularly fleshed out.

There was also issues with the dialogue at times, sometimes being overly modern and then other times Shakespearan. I'm assuming the latter were quotes from the orignal play, but because none of the rest of the dialogue was written in this style, they felt very out-of-place.

Overall though, this was still a fun read, even for a Shakespeare novice like myself.

"I saw a world as dark as raging river," Solveig said softly. "I saw a girl crowned in flowers, floating in the water – a boy with a grinning skull for a face, and he was drenched in blood – I saw... I saw a gaveyard with rows upon rows of fresh graves, and yet more to be dug. And the air smelled like death and roses."
[...]
"Quod tuum est, meum est," the man said. What is yours is mine."

Now that was a wild ride. Shakespearean retelling of Hamlet, but with magic? And queers?? It will be either a grand surprise or even greater disaster.

As you see by my rating, Yves Donlon rather delivered. While in the beginning I had some doubts, later I became completely lost in the story of a young prince, on his path to damnation, and young mirror-being, on the path to her redemption. A story of S&BV is rather peculiar – it is not really a retelling. Donlon takes what Shakespeare gave and rearanges it to their own want. There is certain intelligence to that, with all the balancing between fantasy fiction and intelligent use of real history. Worldbuilding feels rather empty, and in this emptiness it takes the greatest strength – it enchants and snatches, deep into peculiarity and weirdness.

Because it is a weird book. My favourite title to give to the stories that I adored.

If Ophelia has a legion of fans, I am one of them.
If Ophelia has one fan, I am the one.
If Ophelia has zero fans, I am quite possibly dead.

I love the way her character is developed, this strenght inside her and the feeling of injustice, but without modern overview. It is not a slander of modern feminism, it is an appreciation that Donlon does keep to the setting they chosed. I would give my right hand to read more about the Otherwold, Corruption, the way Ophelia moves around the court, with this all-knowing manner and yet desperacy of her young age. Good food, indeed.

On the other hand there is Hamlet – Hamlet with which I struggled, I bored, I found interest and I misunderstood. Donlon's idea of approach to such iconic character is rather unexpected, but that is what I wanted. My relation with him is rather unsimple, which is great. It is not a figure I can take like or dislike from the very beginning, he hurts my head and that is why this story works. It is not simply a retelling, it is a rediscovery, it is originality in adaptation, it is something weird, fresh and charming.

I really, really liked that.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. It’s magic, corrupting Kronborg and those within it from the inside out. Ophelia and her family before her have set upon the task of removing it, but with Hamlet sent away to Wittenberg after a tryst with a stable boy, both of them are about to discover more about the Corruption that threatens their nation. A dual narrative split between Hamlet and Ophelia, this book breathed new life into the play that has irreversibly changed the way I’ll read it. Yves expertly adds new dimensions to characters who are largely absent from the original and deepens existing relationships to draw out every inch of tragic potential. A favourite example was the long history between Hamlet and Fortinbras and the intimacy this gave their interactions, which only adds another layer of tragedy. Unapologetically queer and unpredictably twisty, this is a Shakespeare retelling for the ages.

This is a solid retelling with some cool magic and diversity. I didn't feel invested in the characters but I would recommend for anyone that likes YA and Hamlet.

This is a queer hamlet retelling. I love Shakespeare retelling and this one is filled with magical elements. There are elements of inner struggle with Hamlet and his sexuality, the duality of characters and their imperfections speaks to the authors ability to cultivate a beautiful, queer retelling. The representation was phenomenal. Overall, this story is everything it promises. LGBTQ, fantasy elements, romance, healing, and sacrifice.

Retellings/reimagining can be tricky. It's hard to balance using the source material against doing something different with it. This one succeeds in that. It has a new perspective on Hamlet (magic), but it still feels grounded in the play.

Hamlet as someone longing for something he can't name and discovering magic and Ophelia as a witch working tirelessly to combat the corruption threatening to overrun Helsinor and Denmark were fun to read about. The way the mystery with magic and corruption played out was well done. It seems like this was setting the stage for the events of the play, so I'm hopeful for a second book that covers Hamlets internal conflict and his conflict with Claudius.

Retellings are a difficult genre. Shakespeare retellings are especially tricky, considering how massively popular Shakespeare is as an author. Allusions to his work are everywhere: The Lion King; Mean Girls; etc. I went into this with exceptionally high hopes: Shakespeare? Check. Queer? Check. Historically grounded fantasy? Check, check, check. 

There was so much promise here! I’m heartbroken that, at least for me, it didn’t quite live  up to its potential.

Oh, there’s so much here that I wanted to love. Grounding the events of Hamlet in the politics of early modern Europe is a fascinating choice. The religious and cultural conflicts of sixteenth century Europe are so complex and interesting, and utilizing Wittenberg University as the site of so much tension is, frankly, really fucking cool. The changes made to characters’ backstories are also incredibly interesting, and, while it’s hard to pick a favorite, Jewish/Italian Horatio absolutely captured my heart. Hamlet refers to Horatio as “more of an Antique Roman than a Dane” in Hamlet, and this change casts that line in an entirely new light. Horatio is “Roman” in Dolan’s text, but because he’s Jewish as well, this line carries a new, barbed energy. That is, in my opinion, what the best retellings do - more than making changes for the sake of making changes, there’s something intentional and clever going on here that adds to the text.

(I wish we’d seen more of Horatio, and I wish I, a humble Hamlet/Horatio girlie, had more to feast on than the crumbs we get, but in the end, that’s not something I can really fault the book for. “Queer Hamlet” doesn’t always mean Hamlet/Horatio, and I can’t really get mad at the author for failing to deliver on something that wasn’t advertised.)

However. However. 

As someone who is, as I’ve said, a Shakespeare devotee, there was a lot here that just didn’t work for me. The book is unclear on what it wants to be. Is this a grounded historical fantasy that quotes from Shakespeare and grounds itself firmly in sixteenth-century Europe? Or is this a speculative fantasy with a more anachronistic style of writing? Is this Babel or My Lady Jane? I don’t have a problem with either of these approaches, but the constant switching back and forth between the two gave me whiplash. 

I’m also not quite sold on the magic system used in this book. The concept of “Corruption” as a literal manifestation of “something rotten in the state of Denmark” is a really interesting idea, but I’m just not sure what it added beyond that. More than that, some of the magic was, for lack of a better word, downright goofy. When it worked, it worked well - Rosencrantz, for example, was an especially compelling character. The choices Donlon makes with him are incredibly interesting, and I’m intrigued to see what they do with him in the sequel. When it didn’t work… oof. Again, the word I’m using is goofy, and that’s not really the tone you want to capture when you’re writing a Hamlet prequel.

I have a few other minor quibbles. Calling Hamlet “Prince Hal” is a choice when there’s another, much more famous “Prince Hal” from Shakespeare’s canon; I’m not sure whether this was an intentional reference, but it bugged me. There’s a few lines from The Tempest sprinkled in here for no apparent reason, and, I’ll admit, that’s an incredibly minor nitpick, but as someone who owns two complete editions of Shakespeare (one for the aesthetic, one annotated), I’ll be picky about Shakespeare, dammit.

In the end, I liked this book fine. In hindsight, some of my disappointment comes from the fact that this is a prequel; I expected the characters to have their canon personalities, when the events of Hamlet haven’t happened to them yet. That’s on me. Will I pick up the sequel? Maybe. I’m interested to see what Donlon does next with these characters and this premise, and the writing style was sharp enough to keep me interested. Ultimately, I feel this was a case of misplaced expectations: when I read “queer Hamlet retelling with magic,” I expect great things. But not everyone achieves greatness. Sometimes, all we end up with is “just okay.”

(Review will be posted 04/10)

this was a very sweet retelling of hamlet, although i did feel a little detached from it — perhaps due to the fact that it’s a ya and i don’t really mesh with that genre anymore. it was still entertaining enough, though!

This was a great retelling of Goodnight Sweet Prince series, it had a great retelling of MacBeth and I thought the overall story was interesting and unique. The characters felt like they were supposed to and enjoyed the new take on them in this world. It has the supernatural element perfectly. Yves Donlon has a great writing style and it left me wanting to read more in this series as I really enjoyed what I read.

There were some details adapted from the original play in a way that I appreciated. However, I struggled to stay engaged with the book overall. Sometimes things would happen and I wouldn't be sure why they were happening, or what they had to do with other parts of the story, even though I was pretty sure I was supposed to. The magic was explained well enough, I suppose, but it didn't make sense to me on a conceptual level - ie, how would it work beyond how it engaged with the main characters? If I followed it out logically, there were a lot of things that wouldn't make sense in my opinion. And even within how it engaged with the main characters, I'm still not sure why certain things happened. This is fine, normally, but I was also unsure if I was supposed to know in most of those instances, and felt like I was. Horatio flipping sides at the end didn't make sense to me either. Most of Ophelia's plot felt like repetition of the same thing and kind of filler-y, until Hamlet got back and things could move forward.

I did like Ophelia and Hamlet's friendship, That and Ophelia and Laertes's relationship were the ones that I was most invested in. The dynamics between Fortinbras and Hamlet and Ophelia and her father were also well written, and I did think whatever dynamic Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had both with each other and with other characters besides Hamlet were intriguing.

However, I did not personally click with the writing style, so that may have made it harder to connect with what was going on in the book and with the characters.

Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.


I really enjoyed this. It's a wonderful and quirky retelling, the banter between the characters was great and I'm looking forward to more from this author.

This is one of my favorite Hamlet retellings of all time. Ophelia and Hamlet's relationship has my entire heart, and the magic system is so cool.