Henry Hamlet’s Heart

Reviewed By  Gabriel Garcia       August 7, 2021

 

Author  Rhiannon Wilde

Distributor:      UQP
ISBN:                 9780702263149
Publisher:         University of Queensland Press (UQP)
Release Date:   July 2021  

Website:    https://www.uqp.com.au 

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Henry Hamlet’s Heart is a young adult coming of age novel set in Brisbane, Australia and is written by Rhiannon Wilde. Set at the end of year 12, Henry Hamelet’s Heart follows the journey of one Henry Hamlet.  A relatively successful student, popular and holding the school captaincy, Hamlet realizes that the safe cocoon that is high school will swiftly eject him into the wider world.

On top of that Hamlet has come to realize he has feelings for his best male friend Len. The following struggles and tribulations of Hamlet and his fellow students are believable and this authenticity is probably helped by the fact that Rhiannon Wilde is a former high school teacher.                                         

 Henry Hamelet’s Heart is written in first person.  Not a particularly long book the book can easily be finished within a weekend. It would be unlikely that adult readers will find the book overly stimulating but then again the book is not aimed for this age group. Though as a teenager I would not have found this book overly stimulating I can imagine that several of my former high school colleagues would have enjoyed the book.      

Young Adult coming of age novels are a dime a dozen these days. Henry Hamlet’s Heart is no different other than the narrative is centred on a homosexual and not heterosexual relationship (and even that “novelty” is becoming so common as to be risk being quite ordinary).  Henry Hamlet’s Heart has nothing bad about it but neither does it bring anything exceptional to the genre.