The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life by Dani Jansen
"Alison Green, desperate valedictorian-wannabe, agrees to produce her school's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. That's her first big mistake. The second is accidentally saying Yes to a date with her oldest friend, Jack, even though she's crushing on Charlotte. Alison manages to stay positive, even when her best friend starts referring to the play as "Ye Olde Shakespearean Disaster." Alison must cope with the misadventures that befall the play if she's going to survive the year. She'll also have to grapple with what it means to be "out" and what she might be willing to give up for love."
This book was certainly very funny. I enjoyed Alison’s humor and her internal monologue. This book was a fairly light story about a senior whose biggest goal is to become valedictorian, no matter the cost. It starts right off with a teacher conning her into producing the school play under the guise of being “co-producers”. But it becomes immediately clear that the teacher has no intention of helping and has left Alison to produce a play all by herself. There was a lot of humor, there was a lot of second-hand embarrassment, and disasters that could have been avoided if Alison had just asked for help.
What I did not enjoy as much about this book, was the pressure on everyone to come out. Alison tells her story about coming out to her best friend. And the best friend immediately pressures her to come out to her family. No one gets to tell you when and where to come out. It’s not always safe, you’re not always ready. Coming out is always brave, no matter your situation. I think there was an unhealthy level of reinforcing this idea that the worst thing you can do is not come out if you’re queer in some way. Not everyone is in a safe place to do this. And I don’t think it’s fair to push this idea on teens. Especially since there are real and disastrous consequences for some people who come out in an unsafe situation. You and you alone get to decide, when, where, how, and to who you come out. End of.
Aside from that, I think this book had some really great rep in it. The MC was a lesbian. There are a couple of gay and possibly queer side characters. Her best friend is BIPOC and her other friend is described as Korean-American. Overall, I enjoyed this book, if there wasn’t all the pressure for characters to come out, I would have definitely given it four stars!
Genre: ya, historical, fantasy, lgbtqia+
Representation: lesbian, gay side characters
Content Warnings: racism, toxic masculinity, internalized homophobia, a culturally insensitive teacher