To Be or Not To Be by Ryan North

Picture this: Hamlet but it's Choose Your Own Adventure style and you can go through the story as someone other than Hamlet. That's what "To Be or Not To Be" by Ryan North is! It's everything I didn't know I needed until I had it and it is truly amazing.

Normally I would start this with a summary of the story but I think everyone knows the basic story of Hamlet? Or am I just assuming that because I was an English major and almost all of my friends took at least one Shakespeare class? The short version is it's the play where Hamlet's dad gets murdered by his brother, Claudius, then Claudius goes and marries Hamlet's mom just two weeks after the funeral and the ghost of Hamlet Sr. tells Hamlet Jr. that he must murder Claudius as revenge. But, of course, basically everything goes wrong. And it's a crazy enough show that the title character gets kidnapped by pirates and it isn't a major plot point, which is one of the many reasons that it is my favorite Shakespeare play.

In "To Be or Not To Be" we start by choosing one of three characters to make choices for, Ophelia, Hamlet, or Hamlet Sr.. I ended up going through the story three times as Ophelia, once as Hamlet Sr., and three times as Hamlet, with plenty of backtracking because I was curious which directions the different choices would take me. Every option was interesting and funny. And there was the option to just follow the traditional story as every choice that Shakespeare made in the play was marked with a skull. I wish I could go through and see every variant of the story, but I've convinced myself that that would be insane and I need to return this book at some point.

Ryan North is a hilarious author who did a great job with the choose your own adventure format. I particularly loved all of the references to other Shakespeare plays he made throughout (the ending that suggests that Hamlet and Banquo of Macbeth are the same person was my particular favorite).

This book definitely has my recommendation, it's so fun! Once you get into one way through the story you have to see it through to the end, but even the longest of those versions is easy to do in a single sitting. Also, this is the first book I've read from the library now that I have a library card again! I'm very excited about being able to go to the library, so look forward to more cover pictures that are oddly shiny because of the plastic covers they put on library books :)

XO, Ellen