4 out of 5 stars
Since this is a modern-day take on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, I feel justified in using adjectives like awesome, really cool, and amazing (even though I've grown to dislike the overuse of that word...) to express my enjoyment of this book. It's also beautifully written, and Winterson weaves a lot of atmosphere and mood into her prose. It was a perfect pick for a rainy weekend. As with Shakespeare's characters, you find yourself wondering at times what exactly is making these characters tick -- we're not taken very deeply into any of their hearts or minds. Sometimes this annoys me, because if someone is a villain, a hero or a hot mess, I want the back story, or at least a few clues. But since this is told as a "tale" vs. a navel-gazing novel, I felt it still worked. And there's still plenty of raw emotion and underbelly to keep you riveted. At least I thought so. If you're looking for a synopsis, don't rely on the book jacket -- that little blurb is stupid and useless, and it doesn't do the story justice AT ALL. Goggle the plot of The Winter's Tale, because that's really what this is all about with a lot of really cool imagery, awesome (yet subtle) humor, and amazing observation about the human condition. One of my favorite truths toward the end of the book (not a spoiler):
"And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman's fortune or one man's loss. And we can't know the lives of others. And we can't know our own lives beyond the details we can manage. And the things that change us forever happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed. And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside of the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change."
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