Twelfth Knight is perfection. My favorite Shakespeare play is Twelfth Night and so I had high hopes. And this one is even better than I imagined. This is fun, had me unexpectedly emotional, and sweet. Keep reading this book review of Twelfth Knight for my full thoughts.
Summary
Viola Reyes is annoyed.
Her painstakingly crafted tabletop game campaign was shot down, her best friend is suggesting she try being more “likable,” and school running back Jack Orsino is the most lackadaisical Student Body President she’s ever seen, which makes her job as VP that much harder. Vi’s favorite escape from the world is the MMORPG Twelfth Knight, but online spaces aren’t exactly kind to girls like her―girls who are extremely competent and have the swagger to prove it. So Vi creates a masculine alter ego, choosing to play as a knight named Cesario to create a safe haven for herself.
But when a football injury leads Jack Orsino to the world of Twelfth Knight, Vi is alarmed to discover their online alter egos―Cesario and Duke Orsino―are surprisingly well-matched.
As the long nights of game-play turn into discussions about life and love, Vi and Jack soon realise they’ve become more than just weapon-wielding characters in an online game. But Vi has been concealing her true identity from Jack, and Jack might just be falling for her offline…
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Viola Reyes is “Mad Woman” to a T. And as someone who has been called many of the things Viola has, she was exactly the character I needed to read. My blood boiled for her not only objectively – because the sexism she experiences makes your skin crawl – but in the ways it mirrors past experiences of mine. I’ve experienced plenty of times where I felt unsafe in gaming spaces online and IRL. Where our attention was mistaken as affection. Viola’s character made me feel seen in the ways the world asks us to tone it down. To not get so ‘upset’.
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To not be so serious. There’s only so much of that you can hear before you internalize it – even if you don’t realize it or want to. To feel, whether it be because of our friends or society, that we’re the problem. That we’re the only ones who are angry. And that anger is exhausting. Twelfth Knight is about the rampant sexism in gaming spaces, and in society as a whole. But it’s also a story about mistaken identities, about love in unfamiliar spaces, and about seeing people for who they are.
And part of why I loved it were the narrations of Alexandra Palting & Kevin R. Free. Alexandra perfectly plays the anger, but also the worries of Viola. That no one will ever see her, and accept her, for who she is. And Kevin did a phenomenal job at narrating Jack’s frustrations and doubts about his future. Twelfth Knight was absolute YA Contemporary perfection and the fact that it’s a “Twelfth Night” retelling just is the icing on the top.
Find Twelfth Knight on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.