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.
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.
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Dani Jansen is a teacher and writer who lives in Montreal. She should probably be embarrassed to admit that she has performed as part of her school’s Glee Club for eight years. She should probably also be ashamed to tell people that she named her cats after punctuation symbols (Ampersand and Em-Dash, in case you’re curious).
My thoughts:
I am a recovering theatre kid so this book spoke to me on so many levels. I have been involved in shows where things can go wrong, as an extra I once stood on an actor’s stomach and thought I’d injured her badly (Romeo & Juliet 70s punk style, she was on the floor and I had to jump off a box and she wasn’t supposed to be there, then I fell off the stage and almost landed on the mayor!), then there was the year our leading man got stoned on opening night and couldn’t remember his lines in front of the headmaster, mayor and other local notables – as stage manager I had to stop our director/drama teacher from killing him during the interval. Basically I’ve seen a lot of drama on stage and off.
So I empathised massively with Alison, producing her school’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, when an actor quits, her costume designer has a relationship malfunction and she gets threatened by the theatre mafia!
This book was a total hoot, I was laughing out loud at times (cue some strange looks from my very own Mr Shakespeare, my husband (yes that is our last name)) and cheering Alison on as she went on a date with the hot girl of her dreams (and corgi lover), Charlotte.
I highly recommend this book to any theatre kids out there, or anyone who loves funny, entertaining books with heart.
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*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 