This book is an astonishing gamble of object desire and fervent hope: that there are people out there who are filled with a combination of a love for language, the theatre, and Shakespeare that they’ll make a market for a book like this.
It’s by no means perfect: it’s riddled with continuity errors, anachronisms, and character inconsistencies – much like Shakespeare – and, much like Shakespeare, it just doesn’t matter.
The characters are full-of-themselves as only final year art conservatory students can be – and Rio captures this weird world with aplomb – especially the ego masking the fear of your own empty soul.
n.b. Released 11th April in the US and June in the UK. Worth preordering.