Leave it to Picoult to put together an immaculately researched novel. Learning that Shakespeare might not be the renowned playwright we’ve been taught was incredibly interesting. Placing the story’s focus on Emilia Bassano and her modern-day descendant highlights that while some progress has happened since Emilia’s time, we still have a long way to go in telling more diverse stories more often. Plus, reading about two strong female characters vs. a man is much more interesting to me. Shakespeare’s name is a punchline, but we’ve forgotten that the joke shows that history, as it is presented, should always be taken with a grain of salt.