Kissing ShakespearePublisher: Random House, 2012Genre: YA Paranormal
Miranda has Shakespeare in her blood: she hopes one day to become a Shakespearean actor like her famous parents. At least, she does until her disastrous performance in her school's staging of The Taming of the Shrew. Humiliated, Miranda skips the opening-night party. All she wants to do is hide.
Fellow cast member, Stephen Langford, has other plans for Miranda. When he steps out of the backstage shadows and asks if she'd like to meet Shakespeare, Miranda thinks he's a total nutcase. But before she can object, Stephen whisks her back to 16th century England—the world Stephen's really from. He wants Miranda use her acting talents and modern-day charms on the young Will Shakespeare. Without her help, Stephen claims, the world will lost its greatest playwright.
Miranda isn't convinced she's the girl for the job. Why would Shakespeare care about her? And just who is this infuriating time traveler, Stephen Langford? Reluctantly, she agrees to help, knowing that it's her only chance of getting back to the present and her "real" life. What Miranda doesn't bargain for is finding true love . . . with no acting required.
Miranda is tired of living in the shadow of her mom’s acting career. After a horrible performance in the schools showing of The Taming of the Shrew, Miranda has decided to quit acting. Then Stephen Langford comes along and snatches her away to 16th century England! He’s recruiting Miranda to use her acting and her modern feminine wiles on William Shakespeare to keep him from joining priesthood, because if he does history will be re-written. There will be no more Shakespeare, the world’s greatest playwright. Miranda doesn’t know how she could possibly help since she’s never seduced anyone in her life, but she agrees to help Stephen if he promises to take her back to the present. When Miranda asked for that promise, she didn’t know one day she might not want to return.
Pamela Mingle’s debut, Kissing Shakespeare is an intriguing and unique time-travel story. The plot was interesting, full of intrigue and historical bits and pieces that took me right to the 16th century. I’m a bit of a history geek, so this was a plus for me. However, I though the beginning felt a bit rushed. I wished I’d had more time to know Miranda beforehand. Her bratty attitude didn’t endear her to me at all, and I spent most of the first part not really caring what happened to her.
I started caring about Miranda about halfway in. She goes along with Stephen’s plan, and it was fun reading about Miranda’s tries at seducing Will, but she’s also investigating and looking for other ways to sway Shakespeare. Ways that don’t involve seducing and all that. But then there were other times where I just wanted to knock her over the head with something heavy. There were two paragraphs that I wished had never been there: the one where she says losing her virginity won’t be a bad thing because it has to happen sometime, and the one where she says it would ‘be so cool’ to lose it to Will because he’s Shakespeare. Seriously? *throws book*
Stephen’s role was pretty interesting. He says he spent months is Miranda’s modern time, among teens, and attending school and everything, yet he is oblivious to most modern concepts and words. I had a few laughs about his misconceptions of the modern world. I loved him at times, but other times I didn’t. I hated his attitude towards the role he wanted Miranda to take, basically forcing her to throw herself at Will. That was so wrong on many levels, and more so when she agreed. Then Stephen clearly had feelings for her, and he made his advances, yet he kept turning back and pushing her towards Will. Le sigh.
Overall, I thought this book had great potential, but it was so not what I expected. I thought I was getting something sweet, full or romance and love, and I got a story about a girl’s journey to seducing Shakespeare, but falling in love with her abductor. I won’t give it a one for the simple reason that I finished it, and it was readable. But this wasn’t my cup of tea.
*I received this book via Netgalley from the publisher*
Favorite Quotes:
~What girls do…~
“So you’ve never slept with a man?”
“No!” I repeated. “How many times do I have to say it?”
He looked skeptical, and I was pretty sure he still didn’t believe me. “While in your time I viewed some plays on the TV device. All the young ladies were bedded by their gentlemen friends.”
“What shows were you watching?”
Stephen leaned forward and propped his chin in his hands. “Let me see if I can recall. One was ‘Gossip’ something.”
I was incredulous. “Gossip Girl?”
~Pecs~
I risked a glance and saw that he’d stripped to the waist. Whoa! Stephen was the owner of an amazing set of pecs. He looked like a modern guy who was into some serious lifting, but I was pretty sure his lifting was confined to things like saddles, farm implements, and hay bales. As though he felt my eyes on him, he turned his head to the side and looked right at me. Oh, shit! My cheeks burned, and I spun back around.
~What do you say to Shakespeare?~
I couldn’t think of anything to say to Master William Shakespeare, funny or otherwise. Seen any movies lately? Are you into graphic novels? What’s on your iPod? You should start a blog! That would really get your name out there. Do you tweet?
