Shakespeare, Sex, and Love Book

Note: All of these ratings are based on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best.

Quality of Writing: 5
This is a very academic sort of work, which naturally gives it a boost in this area. Now, I understand that because of the academic nature, other sources need to be cited. But this book seemed to have one too many citations of the plays it discussed - as though it basically summarized the plays instead of analyzing them. So that knocks it down a few pegs. Nothing in the writing is particularly amazing to bring it up anymore, so a five it is.

Pace: 5
This book is not a page-turner, simply because of the density of its topic. However, it is laid out very logically and mostly without overlap in the chapters. Usually, when I rate novels, I say something about "chronological order" with regard to pacing; "logical layout" is the equivalent with nonfiction, and Wells does a decent job of it.

Plot Development: 5
For nonfiction, "plot development" translates as "argument layout." What this book lacked was a central argument. There was a premise, a sort of interconnected discovery adventure, but to no eventual end, making it difficult to force myself to start a new chapter. However, each chapter had a central idea that was well-explored and developed throughout the individual chapter, knocking this category up to a five.

Characters: 3
Warning: if you haven't read Shakespeare, don't read this book. Each character for each play gets only a cursory description, and you'll soon find yourself lost in the world of Shakespeare. However, the quick mentions of Shakespeare as a person added to my knowledge of him (or my ability to speculate, which is perhaps more interesting).

Enjoyability: 4
Eh. I'm not that into Shakespeare, nor sexual immorality. But it's an interesting topic, enough to hold one's adventure for a little while, especially if one if familiar with the plays.

Insightfulness: 8
I learned a lot about Renaissance society through this book, learning that it wasn't that different from our own regarding sexuality. Interesting how so much can stay the same. The Shakespeare part I understood some of, but some of it went over my as-yet-uneducated head, knocking off a few points.

Ease of Reading: 1
This is where academia rears its ugly head. Not only is the Shakespeare difficult, but Wells's own prose is rife with strange vocabulary (threnody? mellifluous?) and the general roundabout academic way of describing simple things. Do not read this book if you are a beginner to anything - reading, poetry, Shakespeare, sexuality, or English.

Photos/Illustrations: 9
Since Shakespeare is meant to be a play, the photos in the middle were helpful to see. Almost every specific staging that was mentioned got its own picture, so when I snuck a peek at the pictures beforehand, I was enticed to read on to find out what they were depicting. I only knocked it down a point because they were black and white and I wanted to see more of them!

All of this averages to a perfect 5/10 (isn't that nice?) which is a 2.5/5, hence the 3-star rating.