This book was given to me by my partner’s mom, she read it and liked it and thought she would pass it on to us. We are a bunch of Shakespeare fans, so it makes sense. I found the book confusing more than anything else, and while it has the potential to be funny it largely does not fully deliver on it. Still, it is a fun take on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and I imagine the other books in the series hit a little better.
The book opens with Pocket, a fool, adrift at sea with his friend Drool and monkey Jeff. They shipwreck on Athens and meet Cobweb who is recognizable as a fairy to us and not to Pocket. From there, the two wander into the Mechanicals practicing a play, and get stopped by the watch. Pocket narrowly escapes (and thinks he is a ghost for a minute) while Drool is captured. Turns out Pocket was turned invisible by the Puck and that’s why he thinks he is dead. Pocket heads into town and runs into the lovers on the way. One back, he is enlisted by Hippolyta to take a message so he goes back into the woods where he finds the Puck murdered. He is arrested by the watch, taken in, and then enlisted by Theseus to find the love flower. Pocket goes back into the woods, runs into Titania and her fairies, and joins up with the changed Bottom, Cobweb, Moth, and Peaseblossom to find Oberon. Also there’s occasionally appearances from Rumor, a big guy in a cloak of tongues who tells Pocket that he’s ruining the plot.
They get to Oberon and find out that a goblin killed Puck, but the better question is who paid the goblin to do it. From there, back to town where the sad Mechanicals are met and Pocket decides to rewrite their entire play to try and reveal who killed the Puck. Rumor shows up as well, and then Puck is frolicked back to life by the fairies to reveal that he is Titania and Oberon’s son, Puck’s son is the little fairy child, and he wanted to kill all of the nobility. Pocket and Drool head on with Cobweb, while the monkey Jeff stays behind with Moth.
Alright so my main critique is that the plot is far too complicated. Pocket runs into all of these people and is paid to do different things by all of them, and then he makes very little headway on the whole solving the mystery thing. You just find more and more layers until the play at the end where Pocket just kinda lights the whole thing on fire to see who gets smoked out. (And honestly I still don’t fully understand who killed Puck.) Whole thing was kinda incomprehensible.
And the humor primarily relies on sex jokes. Which is Shakespearean, yes, but after hearing about how the fairies are naked and the goblins shaved their bits for the fifth time you get a little tired of it. Rumor was funny, especially when his hat is stolen by the fairies and Jeff, but it is also quite weird to have this guy show up and be useless and then yell at Pocket for being dumb. Like do it myself my guy.
Having said all that, Pocket and the fairies are quite fun. I liked that the fairies can’t count or anything so any number they say is almost immediately proven false. Drool wasn’t around as much but I bet he is a good time as well, especially playing off of Pocket. And regardless of everything else, if you know “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” you will likely have a good time seeing the same characters in a different situation.
So anyways, I did not think much of this book or its
mystery. And the humor left something to be desired. But apparently this is
part of a series about Pocket, so the other books might be better crafted, I’m
especially interested to see if any are based on Shakespeare’s tragedies, that
might provide more of a space for the humor to flourish.