I can’t say I totally loved this,at all. The way it jumped back and forth through time left multiple little temporal cliff hangers. It would be a perfect beach read because you had little pauses in which to fit in a swim, or a cocktail by the pool and think about what you had just read.
The death of Hamnet and the immediate aftermath was well done....I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to my daughter, who has a young son..it was traumatic!

Things I was not so enamoured by were....
I read the Hilary Mantel Cromwell trilogy...historical fiction about real people. Those books were meticulously researched and the information that exists out there is documented and abundant. The fiction was spun around fact.
In Hamnet there is so little information..there are no letters or details to suggest character or reasons for actions...and come to that, very little information about actions either. I think this book would have been better if it had not been based on Shakespeare and his wife. On the one hand people have said about the Hamlet connection, but this was not really explored deeply ...and others have said it wasn’t about William at all, in which case why even link it to him. I do actually think a lot is about William, it is just that he isn’t mentioned by name...
I feel that the myths this book generates, the suggestions and suppositions can too easily become a narrative that describes a family that really existed but probably not at all as depicted. It was too much guess work and creating truth around the flimsiest of evidence.

Who knows the nature of the marriage, the reasons for the prolonged separation. I am not convinced at all by the book Hamnet and found the embroidery around what we do know far too elaborate.

Secondly I just found Agnes very unbelievable. She was too good to be true, the supernatural insight, the nature loving witchery just seemed to belong in a different book. It was daft. Why do women have to be witchy to be clever. Her attitude was too contemporary and I just didn’t walk in her shoes, she was too make believe for me. A bit YA in a book that wasn’t YA

Thirdly I just found the over description a bit ...well let’s say not my cup of tea. The description for example in the opening section. A walk down a street in other parts seemed to be trying to include every single pin head, dot and dash of every single human sense...some of the writing felt like click bait...how could you not love a book that speaks of Rowan trees, and creatures and nature...or brave girls striding out of trees with a kestrel....But others have loved this so that is entirely just an opinion, as are all my points above

I will just add that Germaine Greer did a good book about Shakespeares wife a while back. Maybe interesting to read alongside this one

Sorry Hamnet fans ( many of whom I concur totally with most bookish views), this book was not great for me. I would recommend it to read but I don’t think the story will be with me forever.