This week I have read some fun books.  The first of these is William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher.  Doescher has taken the script for George Lucas’s Star Wars movie and translated it into Shakespearean English, complete with the Bard’s iconic iambic pentameter.

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In short, this is the most brilliant piece of writing I have read in a long time.  I am a big fan of the original trilogy Star Wars movies and it’s just incredible how well they work in Shakespearean language.  Doescher studied Shakespeare and is also a big sci-fi geek and his understanding of both media comes across very well.  The dichotomy of the sci-fi content in old fashioned language adds a real interest to the writing.  It’s also a heck of a lot of fun to play “spot the (adapted) Shakespeare quotation.”  For example, we have “Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not” referencing Hamlet’s thoughts on Yorrick.

I have both the audiobook (narrated by a troupe of Shakespearean actors including the author himself) and I strongly recommend experiencing William Shakespeare’s Star Wars in audiobook format rather than the written word.  The cast really brings it to life.

Here’s a sample:

I gave William Shakespeare’s Star Wars a resounding five stars out of five.

Don’t Even Think About it by Sarah Mlynowski
Genres: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Pages: 336 pages
Buy from Amazon • Kobo • eBooks.com

I was given the chance to review Don’t Even Think About it by Sarah Mlynowski for an honest review through Netgalley.  It is an upcoming young adult novel in which a class of teenagers suddenly develops the ability to hear peoples’ thoughts after receiving a vaccine.  Mlynowski explores both the positive and negative sides of the ability in quite an interesting and thoughtful way and there is quite a bit of humour in the book as well.  The characters weren’t particularly well developed – pretty typical two dimensional teens.

All in all though it’s a fun, quick read.  I gave Don’t Even Think About it three and a half stars out of five.

Bobby Ether and the Academy by R. Scott Boyer
Genres: Young Adult
Format: ARC 
Pages: 368 pages 
Buy from Amazon •

Bobby Ether and the Academy by R. Scott Boyer was the second book I received free to review through Netgalley.  It tells the story of a boy who discovers he has supernatural powers and is taken off to a safe place for protection.

I have read the first few chapters of the book, and in all honesty, I doubt I will finish it.  While I am grateful for the opportunity to review it, i has so far failed to grab my attention and the impression I have is that it is written for a younger audience.  Now some books of that kind can transcend age groups – I’m thinking Harry Potter or Percy Jackson – but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.

Now, there is nothing inherently bad in what I have read, and a different audience may love it.  For that reason I’m not going to give it a rating as I think it was just not really what I was looking for in a read.  Feel free to check it out and let me know in the comments if you enjoyed it.

Added to my library this week

This week Audible had a first-book-in-the-series sale so I went a little mad.  I picked up The Fairy-Tale Detectives: The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley just because it sounded like a lot of fun.  For some reason, the Kindle book I own of Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies isn’t the one that’s Whispersync for Voice enabled, which is annoying, so I took advantage of the sale to pick up the audiobook.  The final book I picked up from the sale was Enclave by Ann Aguirre, mainly because I’ve heard a lot of good buzz about this series. 

Finally I picked up Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children in Kindle format. I’ve been seeing some YouTube videos of the author and his new wife, Tahereh Mafi of Unravel Me fame, and they are both just so cute and funny.  It really made me want to read their books.

That’s all I have this week – what are you planning to read?