Book Review: These Bloody Thoughts by Auden Patrick

There are a lot of things I can remember clearly, like the fact that the first time I learned about Shakespeare, I was 12 years old and all the girls in my class were celebrating my birthday by watching the latest big screen adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in my living room. I didn't care for it and went to sleep in my parents' room, leaving them to watch the movie on my couch. The next Shakespeare I remember was trying to convince my parents to go watch another Shakespeare adaptation, this time it being an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew, but I didn't get the chance to watch it until it premiered on television after which no one in my entire grade could stop singing that song from the grand gesture on a soccer field. I studied Shakespeare my freshman year of high school, officially reading Romeo and Juliet for the first time and also studying Much Ado About Nothing. But it was senior year where I was introduced to Macbeth and to Hamlet, two plays that I have gone back to again and again in my head for years. I went on to study Shakespeare again for my undergrad and for my graduate studies, slowly expanding the total number of plays I'd read but I'll admit, there has been something about Hamlet that has haunted my thoughts whenever I consider the plays in general. The story about a young man driven to enact revenge for his father's death and the many consequences that come from that. Where was the line supposed to be drawn, who was the most responsible for every pain and death in that story? I've always felt the play was exactly what it was meant to be, a tragedy, but in Thoughts Be Bloody, this was the first time I truly sat and became angry with what transpired in that story. In some ways I LOVE this book but in others, I am sitting with the mirror that Auden Patrick has put in front of this play and I am enraged by the events I have witnessed in this book. Those stories are always the best, the ones that rearrange what you though you knew and showed you something you never actually considered could be true.

The world-building is straight-forward with the idea of Elsinore as a school for magic, hidden away in a dome that keeps non-magic people from discovering it. The setting was easy to imagine, this college out in the middle of a forest, hidden away with it's own way of life and the quirks of its weather and the protection it is supposed to provide. But what is truly impressive is the magic system. Patrick has put a lot of thought into the addition of magic in this play and the way it has been woven into the threads of this story still leave me a little dumbfounded because the possibilities are endless and what readers see here is only a piece of what could be. The choice to follow Horatio as a character allowed the reader to see the world through the lens of someone who has a foot in both worlds, having gained magic but not having been born with it, therefore having been from our regular world before joining the ranks at Elsinore. Horatio is struggling to catch up on a lifetime's worth of knowledge and the journey of this story only works because of our ability to learn with Horatio. Close enough to the main part of the story to be important but far enough away because of the only recent joining to the world of magic allows our lead to consider the ways that those with magic have cut themselves off, for the betterment of themselves as opposed to helping the rest of the world. Patrick has created a world that seems like it would have been the ideal escape for Horatio but, again with the mirrors, we are shown the true reflection of this school and those who run it and those who graduate from there and that is something that Horatio comes to terms with by the end of the book.

Horatio, dear, loyal to a fault, Horatio. I wanted the world for you but I'm happy with where you will leave the world instead. This was a character that yearned for so much, a person who has made so many difficult decisions, hoping to finally get to that more moment of finally having everything. I could understand the appeal that Hamlet and Lia had for Horatio, to finally feel accepted and wanted but at the same time, I wondered if Horatio had built up these figures in his head. That and more is explored in the book and Horatio's growth made me, if not smile, then at least feel satisfied at the way the events unfolded or will unfold, as the story liked to move between tenses for Horatio. I loved Lia but I wanted more time spent with her. Ophelia was always the character I respected the most from the play and Lia was a worthy and respectable incarnation of her. I just wish Horatio had the opportunity to spend more time with her compared to the amount of time spent with Hamlet. As for Hamlet, the idea of giving a character like that the amount of power he had is a frightening concept to accept. Patrick has done something unique here, giving the tragic title character of the play the power to do anything they wish and then showing how no one would want someone like that to have that kind of power. I never truly considered the fact that in a lot of ways, Hamlet was a monster, determined to wreak his havoc for the sake of his revenge, uncaring towards everyone who stood in his way or ended up a victim of his actions. The play almost moves too fast to truly have that settle in one's mind but in book form, we are given the chance to really sit and absorb what Hamlet does, to see the ways he manipulated and plotted, and I'm sitting here thinking he deserved worse but I know we have to work within the confines of the play so bravo Auden Patrick, for creating such complex characters that stand apart from what has been seen so many times before.

The story starts off with a simple idea of getting revenge and then quickly developed into an exploration of power. Who deserves to have such power and influence? How can anyone justify the actions that have taken place at this school? Horatio wanted to gain power over his life, to finally be the one in control but was magic really what he needed to get away from his life or was magic just something that almost destroyed it? There are so many threads to consider in this story and it will haunt my thoughts just as much as the play ever has. Patrick has taken something familiar and managed to rework it into a story that asks the question, just because you can do something, does it mean that you should? When there are so many possibilities to consider, how does anyone know if they are right or wrong?

Read this book if you like considering the possibilities that magic could bring to everyday life and then seeing just how much better it is that it doesn't exist after all. Or if you're just a fan of magic and have wondered who was the actual, true villain, or even villains, of Hamlet. 

Rating on my Scale: 9.5 Stars. I loved this book but in a lot of ways, it has left me feeling almost bereft after absolutely everything that happened in this book. It'll live on in my head for decades but I won't be able to read it again after the wounds it left behind.

My thanks to NetGalley, Daw and Auden Patrick for the eARC of this book in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own.