Five notable novels that riff on—and rip off—Shakespeare

Lois Leveen is the award-winning author of The Secrets of Mary Bowser and Juliet's Nurse.

[The Page 69 Test: Juliet's Nurse; Writers Read: Lois Leveen (October 2014)]

In 2014, for the Daily Beast, Leveen tagged five books that share a shameless use of Shakespeare as a source, including:

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

If I describe Warm Bodies as “Romeo and Juliet with zombies,” I realize eye-rolling might seem a warranted response. But this novel is worlds away from Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires or the Bennet sisters battling brain-eaters between dress balls. It is a parable about how society demonizes (and even tries to obliterate) those it deems to be different, and it comes complete with a warning that if we follow along, we risk destroying our own chance for happiness. Like Smiley, Marion takes essential conflicts and themes from Shakespeare and transposes them to an entirely new (and in this case post-apocalyptic) setting, then makes them his own. But he is borrowing from more than one source; my beloved Nurse is transformed here into a teenage friend of Juliet’s, a la West Side Story. Spoiler alert: “Happily Ever After” takes on a whole new meaning if you’re undead.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Warm Bodies is among Rachel Aukes's five top books that take zombies in a new direction, Ceridwen Christensen's seven top books with thinking zombies, Jeff Somers's eight best speculative works with dead narrators, Sarah Skilton's six most unusual YA narrators, Rachel Paxton-Gillilan's five funniest YA zombie novels, Nick Harkaway's six favorite holiday books, and Nicole Hill's seven favorite literary oddballs.

The Page 69 Test: Warm Bodies.

My Book, The Movie: Warm Bodies.

--Marshal Zeringue