By Any Other Name, a review by Shelley

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BY ANY OTHER NAME
Jodi Picoult

Penguin Random House Canada
Publication Date: August 20th, 2024
544 Pages
Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop.org

Genres: Historical Fiction | Women’s Fiction | Literary Fiction

I always find three-star reads hard to review, the rating of this one isn’t a reflection of the author’s talent or writing capabilities. Many of Jodi Picoult’s books have been five-star reads for me. This is more about my personal preference and enjoyment of the book rather than the author’s writing style; poetry and Shakespeare are just not for me.

I loved the idea of the book about two women, who are playwrights, one in 1581 (Emilia) who is the true author of William Shakespeare’s plays and the other (Melina) is in the present and she’s the ancestor of Emilia. The two timeline narratives worked well for me and Jodi Picoult is the consummate storyteller as always, but this is a very long book at over five hundred pages and I found my attention waning throughout.

The majority of the book is in the earlier timeline and I think that is why it didn’t work for me. I’m not a big fan of Shakespeare but as always Picoult did a marvellous job with her research it was simply incredible and five hundred years later women are still struggling in the male-dominated world of publishing. Picoult deserves three stars for her writing ability and research alone. Where she lost me was the drag it was to read so much about the Shakespeare writing controversy, its long chapters slowed the pace so much. But I will always love her for her bravery in taking on tough topics of which she gets plenty of hate mail and pushback. Ms. Picoult don’t ever stop.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.

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