Challenge Corner discussion

Two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard.

In 1581, Emilia Bassano—like most young women of her day—is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress, she has access to all theater in England, and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. And yet, creating some of the world’s greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at great cost: by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history.

In the present, playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. Although the challenges are different four hundred years later, the playing field is still not level for women in theater. Would Melina—like Emilia—be willing to forfeit her credit as author, just for a chance to see her work performed?

I'm going to start today (now) but won't get too far since I'll be spending the day visiting my granddaughter from Oregon and her 3 kids, one being my newest great grandson who's 7 weeks old. :)

Update I didn't get very far. lol I was listening to audio while driving to my daughter's but my sister called me, so I only got about 15 minutes listened to during my 55 minute drive there. So much traffic! I'll get more into it today.

Stopped at Melina, September 2023 / 31%

I am loving this one! It takes me back to my days of teaching. Funny, I'm reading this and The Examiner and both have gotten me reminiscing about my teaching days, especially our Shakespearean unit and Romeo and Juliet. I had to take a Shakespearean lit class in college, but I don't remember a lot of all the plays we read. But Romeo and Juliet I literally taught for 25 years, so I remember practically the entire play.

(view spoiler)[Like the "What's in a name?" speech which is so famous and the lines about love being rough and pricking as well as what I thought was SO funny in the play when Juliet says, "You kiss by the book" and that line in this book brought back how I'd laugh internally going over those lines with kids. There was an instruction book on sex that was thought to have potentially been one of the places that came from, but I did forget the name of the book. Teaching rhyming couplets, blank verse, iambic pentameter, all fun memories of the assignments they did. Anyway, thanks for "listening" to me. lol

I love reading both Melina and Emelia's POV. But after this last POV of Emelia's, I am so into her and Southampton. OMG all of the beautiful lines about love got me good! lol I think my favorite lines about love so far was "Love comforteth like sunshine after rain..." and all the lines that follow...so gorgeous! I can't believe that it's been a whole year since she's heard from Southampton! Jeez, how horrible. (hide spoiler)]

Stopped at Melina, September 2024 / 55%

(view spoiler)[Wow...I'm so into both women's stories. Melina has really put Andre in a predicament. That's a lot of pressure to put on someone to have to maintain a lie like that. I think she needs to find a way to come clean.

Poor Emelia...what a situation she's found herself in. How will she ever know whose baby she's carrying? Back then they obviously didn't have DNA testing, so I wonder how that will be known and IF it will. Alphonso is such a jerk...ugh. Beating Emelia up right after having a baby? Was it because she named it Henry? Whatever his reason that was so awful! And I just knew something awful would happen at the play. He beat her up so badly I wanted to KILL him myself!! I hope he dies in the war and that she and Southampton can finally be together. I was so sad for both of them that she aborted their baby. I assume he'll find out one day.

When she goes to Kit and he asks about Southampton, it said the Queen wouldn't let the courtiers go for fear of them brining back the plague. That reminded me of Romeo and Juliet when someone was sent to tell Romeo about Friar Lawrence's plans and how she'd appear dead, etc. but the messenger got locked outside the walls of the city due to the plague. I love the allusions.

I have to give kudos to Jodi Picoult for writing a Shakespearean sonnet because they are not easy to do! But I checked the rhyme scheme for it and it followed the rhyme scheme. I'm referring to the one that started with "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes / I all alone beweep my outcast state" and writing a Shakespearean sonnet is not easy but that one is written so beautifully. And now she's written and turned over Romeo and Juliet. I can't wait to see if more is written about it.

I was SO sad that both Isabelle and Kit die. She was so depressed over Kit's murder. I felt so bad for her. (hide spoiler)]

Stopped at Emelia 1604-1611 / 77%

(view spoiler)[OMG! What poor Emelia has suffered! Alphonso almost freaking KILLED her. I was shocked and laughing at the same time when she stabbed him and threatened to saw off his testicles. LOL She's gutsy, finally! Then she had sex with him to get pregnant and lost Odyllia at 10 months, then she finds out Southampton got married. I'm just so sad for her. What a miserable life she's led. I can't stand how she's called out as a whore by so many men. And thank God people don't live under the "shame" of being a "bastard" for being born other than from a legit marriage.

Melina should've known that her using Andre like she did would blow up in her face one day. It's unbelievable that her storyline is in our current day and year and yet she's still dealing with sexism and trying to make it in a "man's world." Ugh...we've come a long way but not long enough. Being a woman simply means we do not have equal anything really. If a woman is a boss and strict, she's a bitch. A man is a firm leader or something of that nature. If a woman has several sex partners over time, she's a ho, a man is a stud. Etc. (hide spoiler)]

Finished

(view spoiler)[I loved this one. I especially loved Emelia's POV. She suffered so much...jail, another loss when Henry died, then his wife. She ended up with her grandkids at 66 which is the plight of so many grandparents today. I LOVED that Southampton's son came to visit her and gave her his dad's special memento of her. He truly loved her with all his heart. She got to experience a love we all want in life, and those are the moments that carried her through. I loved how Melina finally got her glory too. (hide spoiler)]

Stopped at Melina, September 2023 / 30%

ha! I loved reading about you teaching Shakespeare!!

(view spoiler)[ I'm not loving this one as much as you.

I've heard rumors that Shakespeare did not write all his plays - they all have a similar sound- but was that just from the dialect at the time? But I think it's a solid argument that he didn't speak all the languages required and that he'd not traveled to the places described.
Interesting to have it accredited to women - I look forward to the author note that says how much is true

but the actual lines being in the book and the current "now" story - it's a little "hit you over the head with the point" and I'm finding myself wanting to roll my eyes at times (and a book with such a good message - I hate feeling that way! It's just such a brutal way to constantly shove it in our faces. . .)

Interesting to see how this turns out - clearly Southampton isn't going to truly go away - but will she write their play and he see themselves in it and bring them together later in life? or will they have a tragic ending? (hide spoiler)]

I totally get it, Trisha! I know a lot of people won't enjoy it the way I did. I am sure a lot of why I enjoyed it so much was all of the allusions to Shakespeare and how it resonated with me and my teaching days, etc. Shakespeare DID "borrow" from another man's work, but he changed it around and HE made it into the famous play. That wasn't atypical at the time to "borrow" others' ideas and basically redo them.

(view spoiler)[And, as it was with Romeo and Juliet, it did end with a tragedy. (hide spoiler)]

I’m going to start this one next week.

Started this one.

22% (view spoiler)[ I’m really uncertain how I feel about this book. I don’t think pretending she isn’t the writer is going to be the best solution. Also don’t know if I love the Emilia chapters that much, but that could be because I like historical romances and read a lot of them. The writing just doesn’t really compare. (hide spoiler)]

44% (view spoiler)[I am REALLY struggling with this one. I don't like either of the main characters. I hate the cheating in the past chapters. And I really could care less about Melina and her "revenge" plot by claiming she is a male. Her friend was right for saying that she needs to tell everyone that it was her work. I seriously don't know if I can read anymore of this book, but I've made it this far, so hopefully the ending is slightly better. (hide spoiler)]

70% (view spoiler)[ I still don’t love this book, but it was really sad how her daughter died and she basically went into a depression. I’m glad that she was able to write her story to kind of help her with the process. Also I’m glad that Melinda finally came clean because that was annoying. (hide spoiler)]

Finished (view spoiler)[That book took forever to read. I honestly struggled so much. I disliked Melinda’s character and really didn’t love Emelia either until more towards the end and her husband died. It was so sad that her daughter died when she was only ten months old. I did find the whole Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays thing to be interesting, I just really found this book to be too long, boring, and with unlikable characters. (hide spoiler)]