A fun book perfect for beach reading.
An experiment took place 20+years ago in which a hair of Shakespeare was cloned producing twin boys and this was compared with a cloning of 2 normal twins. What follows is a Comedy of Errors. When both pairs meet up in a seaside town.
I was given this book by Netgalley and the publisher. This is my voluntary review.

Having studied Latin and Ancient Greek Literature in high school, I always loved comedies featuring mistaken identities, brothers and sisters separated at birth and then reunited, funny situations created by misunderstandings that, then, I found and loved in William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. So, when I read that OH, I DO LIKE TO BE is a “modern update” of the Shakespearean comedy, I was really looking forward to read it and I wasn’t disappointed.

Billy and Bill don’t know each other, but they have so many things in common. They both look like William Shakespeare, they are both playwrights (although one is very successful, while the other is not), they both have a sister, Sally and Sal, who look like each other. What else? Oh, right, together with their sisters, they are both clones created by a scientist, but they don’t know of each other existence.

For the last five years, struggling writer Billy and his sister Sally have been moving from town to town as Billy struggles to write a successful play. They arrive in a small town where successful playwright Bill lives with his wife and with his sister Sal. Bill has a secret to hide and Billy, who looks exactly like him, finds himself involved in his lies and deception causing a series of hilarious and improbable situations that made me laugh out aloud.

With a clear prose, engaging characters, and a little touch of fantasy (the clonation of Shakespeare) this was such an entertaining and quick read. The author’s writing style is simple and fluid, I literally flew through the pages. The characters are likable, funny, and a little simple-minded (especially Sally and Sal). Being familiar with The Comedy of Errors, I knew how the novel was going to end, but I still found a few surprises along the way that kept me entertained.

OH, I DO LIKE TO BE is a charming, enjoyable, and immersive read and I’d like to thank Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in the blog tour.

Oh, I Do Like To Be... is a comic romp that takes the plot of The Comedy of Errors and makes it about modern day Shakespeare clones. Billy was cloned from Shakespeare and his sister Sally was cloned from a hair on the seat of a bus. Together they've just arrived in a seaside town, where Billy wants to work on his writing in the hope of completing a play. Instead, they run into Bill and Sal, who seem to be remarkably similar to them, and things are about to get very confusing as Billy deals with Bill's wife and lover and nobody can work out who they're talking to.

This is a novel that does exactly what it says on the tin. Phillips plays around with a sackful of Shakespeare references, a lot of mistaken identity, and some ice-creams to create this modern version of one of Shakespeare's more annoying works. In fact, Phillips does much like what Shakespeare did to create The Comedy of Errors out of Plautus' Menaechmi, though Shakespeare added a second pair of twins and Phillips doesn't add a third (though does add cloning). If you find The Comedy of Errors and/or Menaechmi infuriating (as I do), you may want to give this one a miss because uses the same comic device in the same way.

However, if you can get past that, it is a purposefully silly novel that doesn't try and take itself seriously, but does manage to get in a lot of references to Shakespeare and his works. Due to the naming differences, it is actually easier to read and work out who is who than might be expected, and its short length, setting, and comedy would make it a good light holiday read.