Heh. Still struggling to get through the trio of Henry VI plays for the Shakespeare 2020 project, but at least this one seemed to move a little faster and had Random!Pirates and Jack Cade who seemed an odd comical homicidal maniac. It helped that I watched The Hollow Crown so I could better follow the action, as well as have a character in my head to keep straight all the warring dukes.

So maybe the best way to read a Shakespeare ply is straight through in one day? I liked this one better than Henry VI part 1 (I gave that one 3 stars) but I also read this one in one afternoon. That was just a better reading experience. Likewise, you’d of course watch the play all in one sitting. It’s just how the stories were designed to be experienced! There was also a lot of action, with lots of deaths, so it was quite exciting. On to part three!

3.5 stars. People say that this is probably Shakespeare's earliest play. It doesn't read as rough to me as [b:The Two Gentlemen of Verona|82346|The Two Gentlemen of Verona|William Shakespeare|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327936223s/82346.jpg|1070598], but you can tell that it's an early play. It's got one of the most disorganized of the plots. Part of that is because it's a middle play of a trilogy, but honestly the whole thing just felt odd to me. Is it about Henry's wife being deceptive? Is it about the noblemen all scheming to take over? Or... is it about this weird peasant uprising? Honestly, all of that stuff just felt like a weird plot cul de sac. However, as always, there's still some beautiful language in there and I liked Margaret's character quite a bit. That would be a fun one to play - the conniving woman, who seems to be on different sides even within the same scene! Very cool.

But why is it three parts?