Review of Kissing Shakespeare

Goodreads Summary: "A romantic time travel story that's ideal for fans of novels by Meg Cabot and Donna Jo Napoli--and, of course, Shakespeare.Miranda has Shakespeare in her blood: she hopes one day to become a Shakespearean actor like her famous parents. At least, she does until her disastrous performance in her school's staging of The Taming of the Shrew. Humiliated, Miranda skips the opening-night party. All she wants to do is hide.

Fellow cast member, Stephen Langford, has other plans for Miranda. When he steps out of the backstage shadows and asks if she'd like to meet Shakespeare, Miranda thinks he's a total nutcase. But before she can object, Stephen whisks her back to 16th century England—the world Stephen's really from. He wants Miranda to use her acting talents and modern-day charms on the young Will Shakespeare. Without her help, Stephen claims, the world will lost its greatest playwright.

Miranda isn't convinced she's the girl for the job. Why would Shakespeare care about her? And just who is this infuriating time traveler, Stephen Langford? Reluctantly, she agrees to help, knowing that it's her only chance of getting back to the present and her "real" life. What Miranda doesn't bargain for is finding true love . . . with no acting required."

I actually squeed when I saw this pop up on Netgalley and instantly requested it. The cover was adorable and Shakespeare was involved. It seemed like a great fit for me and I was equally excited when I found out that my request had been approved. Yay me!

Unfortunately I wasn't nearly as excited when I started reading it. I found myself coming up with all kinds of other things that needed to be done and was constantly squeezing in other books instead of reading this one. I had no desire to go back to it aside from the fact that I owed the publisher a review in exchange for sending me the galley in the first place; so more obligation really than desire.

I never really found myself having that special connection with the main character. And you guys know how I feel about characters, for the most part they are what draw me into a book. If I can't find myself connecting with them then no matter how stupendous a book is otherwise it just won't hold my attention. However, Shakespeare himself I liked. I had always pictured him a bit of a rakish rogue and Pamela Mingle obviously felt the same way about him. And overall the romance within Kissing Shakespeare was sweet.

I did like the historical accuracies and getting a feel for Shakespeare's time. These parts I truly did enjoy. I kind of felt like the main character myself in these sections as I realized how much of what I thought I knew about him were from films and fabricated to better fit the needs of the cast, setting, etc. Things I had always associated with his time period turned out to never have been there and so on. This I found interesting. I liked seeing the differences between fact and fiction and thought this part of the novel was particularly well done.

Maybe my expectations were set entirely too high or maybe its just remnants of my recent reading slump but for me Kissing Shakespeare was, I'm sorry to say, just okay. An interesting read but not one likely to stay with me for long.

This galley was provided by Netgalley and Delacorte Books in exchange for a fair and honest review.