ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
OLDER FICTION
McCullough, Joy

Enter the Body

336 pp. | Dutton | March, 2023 | Trade ISBN 9780593406755 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780593406762 $10.99
(1) YA In this inventive novel that includes elements of verse and script (including some prose in the form of stage directions), McCullough (We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire, rev. 7/21) reimagines the fates of several of Shakespeare's famous female teen protagonists. In Part One, readers are introduced to Juliet, Ophelia, Cordelia, and Lavinia, who dwell as spectral embodiments in a purgatorial "trap room," the space "beneath all the stages, anywhere." Lavinia, whose tongue is cut out by attackers in one of Shakespeare's first plays, serves as a silent symbol of women who have lost the ability to control their own narratives. Each of the other girls recounts her original plot in verse, up to a pivotal point in the story, in a signature narrative style. Juliet's verse is free and ­passionate, Ophelia's dreamy and verdant, Cordelia's precise and pragmatic. In Part Two, the girls engage in lively dialogue in play form, anachronistically debating one another's motives, feelings, assumptions, and faults, finally coming to the ­question: "What if we dared to tell our versions?" In Part Three, each imagines what would have happened had one crucial aspect of her story been changed, with, for example, spirited Juliet claiming a full happy ending by remaining alive and marrying Romeo. This shifting, experimental format will surprise and challenge readers' ideas of ­storytelling and "classic" literature. By innovatively mining feminist themes of autonomy, exploitation, and patriarchy, McCullough boldly reconceptualizes ­Shakespeare's version of the female point of view for a new generation of Bard enthusiasts.
Reviewer: Jennifer Hubert Swan | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

RELATED 

OLDER FICTION

What Beauty There Is
by Anderson, Cory
OLDER FICTION

Between Perfect and Real
by Stoeve, Ray
OLDER FICTION

Zoe Rosenthal Is Not Lawful Good
by Werlin, Nancy
OLDER FICTION

Home Is Not a Country
by Elhillo, Safia
OLDER FICTION

All Our Hidden Gifts
by O'Donoghue, Caroline
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?