REPORT CARD for eyes like stars by lisa mantchev
bff charm: yay
swoonworthy scale: 7
talky talk: shakespeariffic
bonus factors: the bard, drama club
relationship status: friends with potential
the deal:
beatrice shakespeare smith (aka bertie) lives in a theater. she’s not an actress or a stage manager or anything like that — someone left her at the theater as an infant. oh, and this theater (oops, sorry, THEATRE) is of the wacky magic variety, where all the people are characters from shakespeare’s plays, and no one but bertie can leave (but she doesn’t want to). and bertie’s always getting in trouble for messing with stuff, like shooting off a cannon and setting fire to the sets, or sloshing paint everywhere. she’s also always accompanied by annoying little fairies — moth, peaseblossom, cobweb and mustardseed, titiana’s fairies from midsummer night’s dream — who get her into even more trouble. so it’s no surprise when the theatre manager decides to kick bertie out so she can find her way in the real world. she’s given a day to come up with a reason for them to keep her, and she decides to be a Director — the first one the theatre’s ever had — and restage hamlet. of course, this is when all the trouble starts. oh, and p.s. — she’s also torn between her true luv for hottie hot pirate nate and her lust for walking sex, aka the totally untrustworthy fae ariel (from the tempest).
bff charm: yay?
bertie’s pretty cool, she cares about the theatre and has some good ideas, and i’d totally invite her to a sleepover, but i’m not sure she’s the first one i’d go running to when the hot guy from chem class gives me a mix-tape on valentine’s day. she’s pretty clueless about boys (in a cute way), and she’s also self sufficient and good at getting what she wants. i admire her (but for REALZ we’d have to talk about a name change, or at least a nickname — i mean, sure, i love beatrice in much ado more than any other of shakespeare’s heroines, but portia and viola were also pretty cool and had WAY better names), and she def. grew on me, but like erin, i’m not so sure how much more room there is on my bff raft.
swoonworthy scale: 7
ok, torn between a hot pirate and sex personified? hello! naked hot tub with the pirate? magical (ok, probably drugged) tango in spain followed by naughty makeout session with the faery (who, btw, is trying to destroy the theatre and DEF. cannot be trusted)? lots of kissus interruptus? this book scorches in places, and it gets a 7 instead of a 9 because it’s set up as the first of a series, so there’s no … satisfaction … at the end.
talky talk: shakespeariffic
duh. the book takes place in a magical theatRE populated by characters from hamlet, macbeth and the tempest (mainly), so there are lots of quotes from shakespeare and little allusions to the plays. it’s also a very drama club book, loaded with stuff about sets and props and stage directions (which i totally didn’t get, but played along).
bonus factor: the bard
shakespeare! i love shakespeare. like, reading this book made me want to go back and reread the plays in it. so even if you weren’t a drama nerd in high school, you’ll totally get this book if you were an english nerd like i was.
bonus factor: drama club
did i mention this book is for the drama club? the magical stage stuff is pretty rad — need to take a bath (preferably a smokin’ hot one with a sexy pirate)? call in a scene change for a turkish bath. even though the characters are shakespearean, the theatre has access to any scene in any play ever. plus it’s funny to see the prima donnas from the various plays catfight — lady macbeth vs. gertrude, anyone? what’s your wager? and ophelia — NOT the whiny hamlet — has a starring role here.
casting call:
olesya rulin as bertie
i don’t know if she can do frazzled, but hsm’s olesya rulin looks exactly how i imagined bertie. plus, she has experience with the whole drama club thing if she’s been on high school musical.
gg's ed westwick as ariel
westwick can def. do self-interested seduction, plus he has the pretty boy pallor needed for ariel.
clive owen as nate
ok, so he’s like a MILLION years too old to be nate, but WHO ELSE can do ultimate sexy plus scruffy and broody? really, i’m open to suggestions.
relationship status: friends with potential
really, really good friends. i just have to see how the next book goes. i wasn’t sure about this book at first — i’d decided about 1/3 of the way into it i wasn’t going to review it because i thought i wouldn’t be able to appreciate it as much as someone who was into theater could, but then it got like WAY exciting. but i’m a girl who needs resolution, and it totally left me hanging (hear that, catching fire??). so i’m not going to commit to a relationship yet, and plan to take things slowly until i see where they lead — i don’t want to ruin our friendship.
No related posts.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh man, Meghan, I am an English nerd AND do theatre! This book sounds cray to the z, but I think I must give it a try! Plus, sexy pirates? hmmmm….
this is EXACTLY why i need FYA in my life. see, i read about this book on some other sites, and i was like, “ehhh… is this one of those FAIRY books?” (cue fred savage in “princess bride”) cos i’m not really into… that.
but thanks to meghan’s intrepid reading and reviewing, i might give this book a chance!
although how much of this book is just quotes? cos if it’s half or more, i don’t think i can handle it. i mean, i was a super drama nerd (guess who was the thespian society president? THIS GAL!), and i do love theatRE, but if i want to read a lot of shakespeare, i’ll just… read shakespeare.
although there’s no shakespeare play that features a naked hot tub scene AND a sexy pirate (as far as i know), so that’s definitely a point in mantchev’s favor. what am i talking about, that’s like, a 100 points.
HOLLA ED WESTWICK! I want to read it just so I can think about Ed Westwick being sexy in places other than GG and my nightly dreams.
I don’t know, meghan, it sounds like this book verges ever so slightly on Let’s Give All The Characters Clever Names Based On ______ trope that I hated so much in Across the Universe. (I hated that movie for other reasons, too, like the nonexistant plot and also the fact that my LSD supply had run out in 1967, so can it with the stupid visuals, movie.)
But. Shakespeare! And Ed Westwick . . .
I love your casting call! I would have never thought of these people, but now that I see them, they really seem to fit! =)
poshdeluxe, the four little fairies drove me nuts at first, but they chilled out a little bit and stopped, um, overacting. but ariel, mmm … he’s a totally different sort of faery.
and it’s not all quotey — it’s more referencey/inside-jokey with shakespeare. the characters ARE the shakespearean characters, not just named for them, so it def. helps to have an understanding of the plays to get why ophelia’s always wandering around drowning herself and stuff.
this book’s totally a book for the theatRE crowd, but as a non-theater person (except as an audience member), i still liked it.
p.s. did i mention suzanne collins wrote the front-cover blurb for this book? yep, that IS why i read it.
Ooh, Shakespeare inside jokes? Those are my favorite jokes! I was both a drama AND an English nerd so this sounds possibly up my alley.