While I was unable to complete this title on time, I do have some thoughts on the context of this story:

When I first read what the book was about, it intrigued me very much. A sapphic version of Julius Caesar that releases to the public ON THE IDES OF MARCH? Seemed like something very up my alley. But alas, it seemed to go in the opposite direction of my expectations.

It looked like an environment where straight, cisgender people are ostracized, and even if this were to make a point about what queer people have to go through, switching the narrative is not the right way to do it. Therefore, it was/is disappointing to know that books like these are still considered marketable.

I love how so many things happened in the book. I could not keep myself from the book because it was so good

Who doesn’t love a modern Shakespeare retelling?

Overall, this is a fast paced rollercoaster of emotions. Shakespeare is brought right up to date - the references and shaping of the story were a particular joy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lauren Emily Whalen for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

TWs: biphobia, alcohol, sexual content, graphic sexual assault, manic episodes, mental illness, self harm.

I am a HUGE sucker for Shakespeare retellings (it's the English major in me), and so I jumped at the chance to read this when I saw that it was a Julius Caesar retelling. I enjoyed the multiple points of view, hearing about the plot from different perspectives was great.

I thought the plot twists were very unexpected, though brutal. I loved the Bi rep in this book and the mention of the #MeToo movement.

I think the lack of consequences for their actions was unrealistic. The things they did were harmful and horrific and should have resulted in some form of consequence. After everything that happened, expulsion was the only consequence? And they let her finish the school year out of pity? It just felt very unrealistic. As well, at times, the book felt like it was trying too hard to be modern, which was pulling me out of the story.

This book just wasn't for me. It was an interesting concept so I requested it on a whim, wanting to expand my horizons because I don't read a lot in this genre, but maybe I'm not ready for it yet because it didn't work for me. This is a completely me problem because objectively the writing is great.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy of this.

I read about a third of this and had a hard time continuing to read. I didn’t care for the high school setting or the storyline.

Dnf at 30%

I had very mixed emotions about this book, it’s the only book I’ve DNF’d in probably 3 years.

Firstly it should be awesome for the representation crammed into the pages; I’m gay and to see such a wide variety of rep is awesome. However I don’t actually feel that the rep was handled well, and definitely leaned towards controversial points/biphobia etc. Basically the rep wasn’t it.

It’s also a unique lens through which to tell a story, and normally I’m mad about Shakespearean retellings, but this felt incredibly oddly written. There’s a fair bit of repetition and it feels kind of stilted especially around characters stories.

This one just wasn’t for me.

This book was interesting, and it's a bit hard to describe what kind of book it is. The formatting was actually really consumable, the different points of view portrayed as auditory interviews. This made the pacing quick and the layout of the plot well done. Admittedly though, I was frustrated by how long it took to find out what happened. Once I got 50% in and knew what happened and then learned the heavier parts of it - I was invested. However, any book that takes that long for me to get invested... feels eh to me.

This book tackles the incredibly complex subject that is biphobia and the experiences of queer femmes who date cishet men while showing the viewpoints of those who participate in said biphobia. I feel like it did this well, however, at times it did feel a little "much"- like identities were more important than plot, at times.

as CAWPILE: Characters: 7 | Atmosphere: 8 | Writing: 8 | Plot: 5 | Intrigue: 5 | Logic: 8 | Enjoyment: 5
Total: 6.57 / 3 stars

2.75 Stars. This is a book that is a little all over the place, and doesn't always deal with the more toxic nature of high school. I think it was especially jarring that it tries to capture some of the feelings queer folks had during the earliest days of the Trump era, but didn't do a great job of it. It also doesn't help that it is a retelling of a tragic Shakespearean play in Julus Caesar.

So the whole plot revolves around the Julus Caesar stand in learning of the Brutus character 'betraying' her sexuality as a lesbian and then devising a plot to get back at the Brutus stand in. It involves some very toxic behavior up to and including sexual assault. In this sense, it feels very 13 reasons why and handles its dark subject matter just about as poorly. It even has a hook in that the events of the story are based on an English project, and the characters' names aren't even their actual names.

I will give the author this much: it takes a lot of guts to try to tackle a whole bunch of issues within and without the LGBT+ community. I just think that framing it around the retelling of one of the most famous plays and betrayals in history is a lot to handle with grace. I think it mostly fails, especially with the highlighting of biphobia/ erasure and allowing those characters to be the sort of heroes of the story. Almost every character in this book is a level of toxic that is amazing. I found myself not wanting to know what happens to them, simply because they are all mostly horrible people.

It has a lot of tone issues that made it hard for me to follow what the characters actually wanted. It felt all performative, which makes it worse. Mean Girls for example had Regina George, but for as problematic as she was, we were shown some of the reasons why she is the way she is without actually condoning her actions. We saw that she was bad, knew it, and even if her lines are iconically funny, we still knew she needed a lot of work and needed to be laid low before she could fix herself. Here, there were very few lessons learned, and we were often shown one thing, but told another.

I don't say this often, but I don't believe I could recommend this book at all.

*I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review

Take Her Down is a queer YA retelling of Julius Caesar. Set at August Magnet School where scheming is creative and loyalty ever-changing, the story follows Bronwyn St. James, a girl who goes from junior class queen to daughter of an imprisoned felon overnight and lands in the care of her aunt and younger cousin Cass, a competitive cheerleader. Life gets even worse for Bronwyn when her ex-best friend and lesbian powerhouse Jude Cuthbert ostracises Bronwyn from the queer social elite when she starts dating a boy, Porter Kendrick. As Bronwyn and Jude battle for student body president, war breaks out between the girls. But after Bronwyn, Porter and Cass share a video of Jude in a compromising position, Jude suddenly goes missing. No one has seen or heard from her in weeks and it might all be Bronwyn’s fault. Will Jude be found? Or will Bronwyn have to reckon with what she’s done?

I would bet money on the fact that Take Her Down will split readers into two camps: those who will DNF it and those who will devour it based on how they react to the themes in the novel. Me? I landed somewhere in the middle.

Let’s get to the good parts first.

The setting of the novel was fantastic. Beyond Augustus Magnet School, this was set during the months after the 2016 election. Honestly, it was as horrifying as it was validating to read a novel describing the time after Trump became president without ever naming names in the story. Whalen powerfully shows how teenagers were impacted by the 2016 election and how scared they must have felt to have been robbed of a female president who understood their plights and instead faced with someone in office who wanted to very much take away the rights of anyone who wasn’t like him. This time period really influenced a lot of the actions of the characters in the novel and I loved how that reflected trying to regain power in your own vicinity when you’re too young to do anything about it in the large scale of things (I merely mean voting here, we have all seen that young individuals are amazing at taking up political torches and making the world a better, safer place).

I also loved that we have a main character who identifies as demigirl and uses she/they pronouns. Antonia becomes a bigger part of the story throughout the chapters and I enjoyed watching them going from a side character to someone who figuratively brings the whole house down. There is also Cass who’s contemplating her own sexual orientation and while this isn’t a focus, I think it added a lot to have someone try to figure out who they are but not being able to because literally everything around them is crumbling. We also have some great moments of internalised (and externalised) biphobia that show how harmful it can be when sexual orientation is presumed to be something solid when it—like any part of us—is up to change. Jude basically ostracises Bronwyn because she considers Bronwyn a traitor to the lesbian community and while it isn’t easy reading those parts of the novel, it was…interesting to see what causes these harmful misconceptions. Though I will say that if you’re triggered by the biphobic lesbian trope, this book won’t be for you.

That being said, there were some things about Take Her Down that didn’t quite work for me. Due to the nature of this story, there is quite a lot of telling and little showing which is fine since this is literally a student writing down an account of what happened. However, the pacing dragged incredibly up until the halfway point. Of course, we have to get to know all the characters and set up and there are bound to be repetitions when you’re looking at the same narrative from so many different POVs but sometimes it was annoying to get the same information three times from three different perspectives with little to no variations instead of using this opportunity to show inconsistencies or even unreliable narration. However, this was somewhat remedied by the shortness of the chapters that kept the pace moving more swiftly in the second half of the novel.

I also think that there was a lot of potential in this story but whether readers will like it really depends on how much they can stomach—there’s quite a bit of biphobia in here and discussions of mental illness that aren’t always politically correct. I think it’s super vital to see teenagers engage with biphobia and how much of that often comes from people in the LGBTQIAP+ community itself and how it can feel like a betrayal—Whalen really hammers that home in such an emotionally impactful way. But of course, there are moments where it feels utterly devastating to read the reactions from young teens who many consider to be more open-minded than adults. The story is very much intended to be from the view of teenagers so some of the phrasings and reasonings of course make sense but if you’re easily triggered by self harm, sexual assault, or biphobia, be aware of that being big parts of the novel going in.

Lastly, without spoiling anything, there is a range of tough topics included in this novel and while some of them —especially during the Trump era—are addressed in detail, there is one that is the driving force behind and plot twist of the latter parts of the novel and I wish it would have been resolved better. For lack of a better way to phrase it, the stakes that are set throughout the novel are incredibly high and yet, there seem to be almost no consequences for any of the characters who do wrong in this novel—neither those who do it with good intentions nor those who are nefarious and should be put behind bars (you’ll get who I mean once you read the story). But I guess that, too, was supposed to reflect that people don’t always get what’s coming to them.

Nevertheless, if you’re a fan of queer retellings, up for some backstabbing and scheming and feel like Gossip Girl meets Carrie set during the Trump presidency is up your alley, then Take Her Down might be the perfect read for you!

"the truth is, loud and proud is great. but for some of us, it gets exhausting. and confusing."


3.5/ 5⭐.

ARC Provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

(Trigger Warnings: sexual assault, self harm, mental illness, biphobia, bullying, implied sexual content, f-slur used to refer to oneself, mentions of alcoholism, mentions of underage drinking, mentions of drug use, parental abandonment, potential outing, mentions of Tr*mp.)

Told in the form of a student theses, Take Her Down is a modern queer Julius Caesar retelling with plot twists and representation that is done flawlessly.

First of all, I will start off by saying that the premise of this book seemed promising.
I loved the representation and how casually it was done.
It was comical to me how, in most stories, characters are usually being ostracised for their attraction to the same gender, but in this book, Bronwyn is "exiled" because of her attraction to a straight, white man.
I think the author did a wonderful job at capturing the uncertainty surrounding queerness and sexuality, especially as teenagers.
The mental health coverage was superb!

As promising as the premise of this book seemed though, the further I read, the more bored I became.
There is an excessive amount of useless information in this book that could have easily been taken out. Backstories of characters who have minor roles. Five pages of pointless inner monologue. The repetition. Irrelevant.

The characters were okay, but I couldn't find it in myself to care for them. There was a disconnect between myself and the characters. They weren't getting through to me the way I thought they would. 
The mystery surrounding Jude's narrative was the only thing that kept me completely hooked. I also wanted to see what consequences Bronwyn would face. 
The ending felt like a cop out, in my opinion. But I get why the author did it this way.

The format almost reminded me of A Good Girl's Guide To Murder, but make it extremely gay and add some biphobia.

“𝘑𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘊𝘢𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘳, but make it a prestigious high school election” is a brilliant concept. Making sure that this concept is grounded in the gender, sexual and mental health realities of today's youth is a profound and daring choice to make. Author Lauren Emily Whalen skillfully does just that in her newest YA release, 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯.

𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯 is the story of a vicious, life-altering student government election at the prestigious Augustus Magnet School, aka Augustus High. The story is laid out as the Senior AP English project of Calpurnia Kennedy, once a self-proclaimed “unsuspecting baby gay and first-year student at Augustus High.” Calpurnia watched from the sidelines as this student election raged on, fueled by fear, sex/gender politics and deception. She feels a duty to rebuild an accurate narrative from the chaos. And yes, allusions to the Trump/Clinton election that fit so well are included.

This book was sometimes rough to read (DM me for trigger warnings), but at the same time, it was hard to put down. I stayed up too late on more than one night, pouring through the narrative of collected interviews and recordings as Calpurnia strings together the rise and fall of Augustus High’s very own JC. Her project sheds light on the need for power, acceptance and understanding that a whole generation of post-Trump young adults yearn for. These potent desires spell disaster for the characters pulled into the drama of the student election.

If, like me, your brain has hollowed out significantly since high school English, it's worth reading a quick synopsis of Shakespeare's 𝘑𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘊𝘢𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘳 before you get started. You'll quickly deduce that Bronwyn is Brutus and her cheerleader cousin Cass is Cassius, while her charismatic ex-BFF Jude Cuthbert's inspiration is clear from her initials: JC. I'll let you connect the rest of the dots that bind the cast of characters to their literary inspirations. They are as well-imagined, clever and (darkly) funny as any of Shakespeare's characters, while being thoughtfully updated to be more diverse and inclusive.

Determination to find themselves and their place in the world is a trait nearly all of the characters in 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯 share. The Shakespearean mirror the author holds up perfectly reflects the drive seen in the generation growing up in America today. But what happens when this drive turns into desperation, or something even darker?

Of all the characters, I felt an instant kinship with Porter. If you recognize which 𝘊𝘢𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘳 character he's inspired by, you'll expect some sort of mental health crisis. Porter’s journey is raw and real, and readers who have gone on their own mental health journeys might connect with him. I did, and his struggle moved me. (I was fully prepared to riot if/when anything serious happened to him. “I💜Porter” is what I'm saying here, folks)

The novel's framework, much of the cast and the narrative imagery are all reminagining’s from 𝘑𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘊𝘢𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘳, but I didn't feel like I had to constantly compare 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯 to its Shakespearean inspiration, which would have been tiresome. Brownyn and Jude’s fued is riveting on its own even without its literary backbone.

Shakespeare and Roman history fans will appreciate the many nods Whalen makes to both topics. I'm sure I missed as many as I caught. They are cleverly woven into the narrative so they stand out without being distracting, little winks at the source material.

I'm readily giving 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯 4.5 stars. Really the only thing keeping it from a full 5 stars is the fact that Whalen lets most of the characters off too easy compared to the fates of Casear's crew. To me, it felt like some darker repercussions were owed.

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I chose not to finish this book based on the writing style, which I didn't enjoy; the graphic content, which seemed gratuitous; and the over exaggeration of certain topics in order to make this retelling modern. I didn't enjoy and wouldn't recommend.

Didn’t massively enjoy this book. I found it really hard to get into, and the characters where just frustrating. Not really my thing.

This is a fun, interesting, YA retelling of Julius Caesar. The chapters are short which I always love in books because it helps keep my attention. The book is broken down into 5 acts and my favorite part was the entire book was written as if it’s a students thesis paper. The multiple POVs and characters were well written and developed. I loved how the author was able to portray the various challenges faced by many teens.

Check content warnings before going into this book because I was not aware of them before requesting and reading this book. Also, I’m learning YA is no longer for me.

First off: Massive TW for biphobia. This is a constant throughout the book, from straight people and queer people alike.

Okay I loved this book so much. The format of the book is just stunning, the characters are enthralling, and I was obsessed from the second I picked it up.

The story is a queer YA retelling of Julius Caesar, and if that isn't enough to convince you to pick it up I don't know what you could need. Bronwyn - Brutus, Cass - Cassius, Porter - Portia, and Jude Cuthbert - Julius Caesar are the main characters that you will come to know and somewhat despise. Do not despise Porter though, I am a Porter stan until I die okay, I will defend this man until my dying breath. He is me and I am okay with that because I love him. Possibly my favorite thing that Whalen did was make me truly dislike some of these characters despite not wanting to. The mark of a good author is the ability to evoke emotion, and I felt many negative ones when reading about these characters and their behavior.

The betrayal and backstabbing is just so well done. The nasty exclusionary high school behavior was so realistic I got chills. There are a couple of bullying incidents from Jude that as I was reading, I could picture who I know that would do the same thing without even thinking about it. Every part of the story unfolds with a crystal clear motive, and it is disgusting what they are doing but I was on the edge of my seat. The impact of all of this being told after the fact is just so powerful and such an amazing literary choice.

Honestly I think everyone should read this (provided you check the laundry list of trigger warnings first). I guarantee this will be a hit with the queer Shakespeare obsessed teenagers (mostly because it was a hit with me) and I hope that a massive audience can read this and take it for all it is.

Oh my god! I wasn't expecting to love this book as much as I did! It was amazing and I loved everything about it! I absolutely cannot wait to read more from this author!

3 Stars

This book was described as a YA queer retelling of Julius Caesar, and honestly, it does a really good job with that premise. I loved the nods to the original, including taking place at Augustus High. The characters were aptly named and really portrayed their parts. Looking back at some cliff notes to remember all the important details of the original play, this really did line up as a YA queer modern day retelling of Julius Caesar.

The book is written as sort of a literary project by one of the bystanders of the actual events that occurred, Calpurnia. She speaks with Bronwyn (Brutus), Cass (Cassius), and Porter (Portia) the most in the beginning, expanding to other main characters as the acts progress. We get the story of Jude Cuthbert (Julius Caesar), who went from queen of Augustus High, an out and proud lesbian reclaiming the term, running for student body president, and just an overall person of power, to nothing. The book follows all the events that happened, sometimes a bit out of order, but usually it makes sense. Through interviews we get to see the inner workings of all the characters from the moment, and their reflections 3 years after the events transpired.

Jude and Bronwyn have been best friends for basically ever. Then Bronwyn’s life completely changes. Her pop goes to jail for white collar crime, her dad leaves to go find himself among the Appalachian trail, and she has to go live in a converted garage at her estranged aunt’s house. During this time, Bronwyn, an out and proud lesbian, catches the eye of Porter, and she starts developing feelings. Porter, being a straight cis man and all, is not welcomed by the super accepting queer community at Augustus High, and when Bronwyn starts dating him, Jude ousts her from all queer circles. Bronwyn takes this personally and starts to run against Jude in the school presidential election.

I truly loved the bits and pieces that led back to Julius Caesar - it really kept me captivated. While I know the play well, it was exciting to see what the modern day twists were. One thing that turned me off was the structure of the novel. Since it was a collection of interviews, it was very informal, and a lot of times made me disinterested. I loved the content that was being provided, but the way it was written was not something that necessarily appealed to me. I also felt so underwhelmed at the ending.

One thing that truly made me close to DNF-ing is the rampant biphobia in this book that did not stop. It was so strong. Biphobia is something that plagues the queer community, and for so much energy to be put into it, it was hard to read and see that constantly come up. While the author does dedicate the book to “the B’s in LGBTQ+,” it can be super harmful to read all of that hate. It is hard to see biphobia from one character, but to see everyone side with that one character, it feels so overwhelming.

Another thing - this book mentions the presidential election of 2020 very often. It feels like there were so many parallels trying to be made with that and their student body president election. It felt like I could not escape the politics of the real world while reading, which I didn’t love.

I definitely say to check trigger warnings when it comes to this book, as it can get pretty heavy, but ultimately, it was a good queer YA modern retelling of Julius Caesar.

Take Her Down is a queer YA novel. It was a really intense read as it was including triggering topics like rape, alcohol, mental illness etc.

This book was a Shakespeare retelling queer novel, which got my attention with it’s plot and cover. It was an interesting read after all, and the writing style was quite and unique one.

I recommend this book to everyone but be aware of the trigger warning.