I never went to summer camp as a kid, but now I feel like I've been there. Molly Booth does a tremendous job with the atmosphere in the book. I loved the multiple POVs in play and how we got to keep looking at the previous summer from both Bea and Ben as they tried to figure out what happened. The burgeoning relationship between Hannah and Claudia was also perfect.

Full review of this book is available in Big Gay Fiction Podcast #136, dropping May 14.

A couple of things at play here for me I think. 1) I seem to be in the middle of a book funk where nothing is fitting me quite right. 2) I think it might be time to recognize that YA and I are no longer a thing. At least not in the broad scope of things. I was really excited to read it, and I wanted to love it so much, but I just wasn't invested or hooked on the story. Interestingly, the writing in this one was completely engaging, and I definitely think there's an appeal here for younger audiences. This may be one I circle back to once I break out of the slump, but on first read it didn't hook me and I wasn't interested in continuing.

Much Ado About Nothing is one of my favorite Shakespeare comedies. I loved this modernization and the setting of a summer camp!

3.5
I would like to thank Netgalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a Much Ado about Nothing tale but in modern times. I liked this book and read it pretty fast but I can’t say that I loved this book.

The setting takes place at a summer camp and the characters are the counselors at the camp. The thing I liked about the characters is the diversity between them. Whether it was sexuality or ethnicity all were accepted.

This is actually a hard review to write because I am trying to figure out why I did not love this book and I think that it was just too many points of views throughout the story. There were too many characters and it seemed to jump around. It was easy to keep up and not be lost in the story but I wish it didn’t jump around as much.

Overall this was an easy read and those that are Shakespeare fans will be drawn to this story.

This book was so fun. Ridiculously dramatic, but so fun. But what else could you expect from a retelling of a Shakespeare play? I'm ashamed to say I've never read Much Ado About Nothing, but I've read enough Shakespeare to know that this book was true to your stereotypical Shakespeare play. If this wasn't a retelling, I would've been unsure about the over-the-top drama, scheming, and miscommunication, but for the purposes of this story, it was perfect.

This story features two couples (Ben/Bee + Claudia/Hana) and we're thrown right into the drama that occurs between them at summer camp. We're immersed into multiple POVs that aid to our full experience of the story and for us to get the full effect of the dramatic irony. And there sure was a lot of it. The setting of a summer camp worked as a perfect setting for this story to unfold. Where else could this amount of events happen in such a short span of time and be completely realistic?

The pacing and writing were consistent and kept me hooked. I don't often read while eating, but I found myself doing so during my short breaks at work just so I could keep reading to find out what happens next. This was honestly just such a good, fun read.

On top of a feel-good, drama-filled read, this book was great for diversity. I am so here for the happily queer characters. Coming-of-age queer stories are important, but we need more stories in which queer characters are happily living as themselves and just providing great representation. We don't have as many of these yet. This story gives us just that and I love it. Plus, a topic touched upon is that Bee is from Ethiopia and adopted into her family in Maine, and we also get a look at mental illness with Hana.

Overall, if you're looking for a quick, easy read that'll be entertaining, pick up this book.

Have you ever read a book description that feels like it must have been written for you personally? Because that is exactly how I felt after first reading the summary for <i>Nothing Happened</i>. Retelling? Shakespeare? Summer camp? Queer? These are all key words that I look for in the things I read regularly, and somehow it all happens in this book at the same time which is both unbelievable and delightful.

So, <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i> is my all-time favorite play by Shakespeare. I have loved all the versions I have seen and read (well, except the disaster that was the Joss Whedon adaptation, but is it all that surprising that Joss deeply messed up something I love?) and I have been anxious in my search for a version with queer main characters. At long last, I have found one. In this version, we have two main couples: Ben & Bee, and Hana & Claudia.

Hana and Claudia are queer. Hana is opening working on figuring out which label works best for her, bisexual or pansexual, and Claudia is similarly unsure, though she is attracted to women more frequently than men. They are incredibly dramatic, throw themselves into things quickly, and make so much sense as a camp couple that I don't know how I didn't realize before that summer camp was the ONLY place you could set a modern retelling of <i>Much Ado</i>. Bee and Ben are equally ridiculous, though their faults are more in their unwillingness to ever say anything out loud so that they are trapped in a never ending loop of miscommunication. But, like, the fun kind that you have to know is going to happen in a book like this one.

You should know going into this book that you will be encountering a fair amount of cheesiness. People are dramatic! Accusations are made! Secrets go undiscussed! There is <i>so much gossip</i> you almost won't be able to stand it! But, at the center of all of this, is an incredibly faithful retelling that is clearly full of so much passion for these characters and this story. If you have read the play, you will find no surprises, but as a faithful fan I was still smiling at every reveal and worried during every confrontation.

There are certain conventions of this story that work better as a play. The entire ending, for example, is a little hard to pull off in a YA contemporary. And sometimes the cheese does get to be too much. These are the reasons I wound up giving this book a 3.5/5, just because it wasn't a perfect novel. However, every time I opened up my kindle app I would grin because I knew exactly the story I was getting into.

Some other diversity that I didn't mention earlier: Bee and Hana are sisters, and Bee is an adopted member of the family. She is originally from Ethiopia, and that part of their relationship is handled excellently. Hana also deals very closely with depression. She is seeing a therapist and is on medication for the duration of the book. Also! There are a number of background characters who are queer and/or POC!

Honestly, if you go into this book knowing full-well the level of absurdity Shakespeare includes in his comedies, you know the kind of book you're going to get. The plots are sometimes over the top, and everything would work better if occasionally some characters just talked to one another. But if you're looking for something that is going to make you smile for chapters at a time? Something that reminds you of summer, especially summer camp, and all of the drama and romance of a group of teenagers stuck together for weeks at a time? Then this is the book for you.

I think the concept of the story was well done but for some reason I didn't click with this book right away which took me some time to read it. I did end up liking it and how the retelling was done, but it wasn't my favorite read. I will recommend to my students who are interested in Shakespeare to check out this story!

I think I knew pretty early on this book would not be for me. I don't tend to be a contemporary reader, but I picked this up for my favorite Shakespeare play... and I just don't think I'm getting what I want out of it. The humor here is just not my forte. Bowing out because I don't want to publicly trash a book I think is, all things considered, pretty decent and more of a genuine me-not-you thing.

GOOD POINTS: Plot points line up well with original text. A few funny lines.
BAD POINTS: Claudio is awful and I therefore could not get invested in Hana/Claudia even though I wanted to. Bye.

so, what I got out of this is that claudio and hero are still a notp even if they’re claudia and hana. it just doesn’t ever work for me, and while i might hate them a little less in this, I still can’t ship it. Other than Claudia and Hana, I enjoyed this book enough. It wasn't bad. It just was average.

Very cute story. This is a perfect romance for summer.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
This was a pretty cute book. I've never been to sleepaway camp but this book made me feel like I was there in the middle of a hot, fun summer. It felt realistic, compared to stories my friends have of sleepaway camp. I also LOVED the lgbt representation and appreciated it.
That said, I think there were too many narrators. It made it hard to connect to the characters. I think it could've been done with just Bee, Ben, and maybe Hana's POV. I'm familiar with Much Ado and it did feel true to the story, but I have a hard time reading contemporary fiction where all matters would be settled if the characters just TALKED to each other. Especially since Ben and Donald were college students. They felt immature, and actually, so did all the characters except maybe Bee. That kind of funny, over the top miscommunication works in Shakespeare but IMO it doesn't translate to contemporary fiction well.
So, while I thought this was a cute, quick read that made me feel like I was in summer camp, it ultimately just didn't do it for me. I might recommend this to a younger YA audience who wants to get familiar with Much Ado. I would try this author again, though.

4.5 Stars

There's a lot to love about this modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The characters are the strongest points in the book. They are realistic, funny and vulnerable. Nothing Happened is told from multiple POV's which made it confusing at points,but not unmanageable. The summer camp setting was fun and enjoyable. I was really happy with this one! I can't wait to get a finished copy!

I received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Much Ado About Nothing is my favorite Shakespeare play, so of course I needed to read this modernization. There were many things about this novel that I loved. I loved the diversity, of both character ethnicity and sexuality. I loved the way the characters from the play were adapted into a modern setting. I think the modernized setting at a summer camp was perfect for this story, where rumors run wild and hookups are common.

The adaptation choices were really smart almost across the board, from making the Watch Counselors-in-Training, the youngest in the hierarchy who no one listens to, to making the prince and his brother sons of a Senator. I really appreciated how much thought went into characters and events.

However, the novel suffered from the way it was told. There were too many first-person voices. While I understand the choice, the transitions were jarring and the voices were not distinct enough for me to always keep clear who was speaking. I think the story would have been much stronger if the author had chosen third-person instead, making the transitions between focal characters smoother. I also felt that the falling out between "Hero" and "Claudio" wasn't strong enough, and the resolution was anti-climactic. The modernized version lacked the stakes from the original story.

All in all, I enjoyed the read, but there are elements I felt could have been done better.

Do you, dear reader of this review, know how much I wanted to like this?? Do you know how much??<blockquote><img src="https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/walkingdead/images/e/e6/Do_you_understand.gif/revision/latest?cb=20140503060058" width="500" height="200" alt="description"/></blockquote> I was ready to shout this book from the rooftops. I was ready to personally mail a physical copy to everyone I know. I was ready to pull some Disney Channel crap and “accidentally” text a picture of the cover to <i>the entire school</i>. I was SO excited to read this.

So it was probably one of my biggest book disappointments of 2017 when <i>Nothing Happened</i> turned out to be,,,,,, kind of boring.

I should put a disclaimer, though. I’ve been in a reading slump for the past, idk, like two or ten months, and every time I think it’s finally gone for good it pops up again like <blockquote><img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkFNGAHIcAEuvFg.jpg" width="402" height="247" alt="description"/></blockquote> so who knows! This might be my reading slump talking, but, uh, this book was not for me.

One thing this book did get right was the D R A M A. Though it didn’t hit the <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>/Shakespeare comedy vibe right on the nose, it got the spirit of all the capital-D Drama in <i>Much Ado</i> down to a tee.

Also, if there’s one thing that could make <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>, perhaps my <b>all-time favorite</b> Shakespeare play, better, it’s putting queer girls in it. <b>Make Shakespeare Gay Again</b>

But, uh, that was pretty much all I liked.

The characters were all way too flat and boring. I couldn’t connect to any of them. Not one. I think this was partly due to the fact that there were <b>waaaaaaaayyyyyy too many narrators</b>. We were introduced to five new narrators (all in <b>first person</b>) within the first fifteen percent of the novel. And I couldn’t tell <b>any of them</b> apart, much less any of the side characters. Though <i>Much Ado</i> does have a lot of storylines that all happen at the same time, I think that this could have been handled better than having 5 first-person narrators.

I can’t really talk about plot, because, you know, it’s just <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>. Just go read the blurb for <i>Much Ado About Nothing</i>.

The writing was juvenile and choppy. I usually don’t mind juvenile writing, when the book is written for a young audience, but the majority of these characters are 18- and 19-years-old, and yet the way they spoke and the way the book wrote their actions made it seem like they were in seventh grade. They definitely had the issues that a lot of late-teenagers have, but the writing wasn’t on the same level. The dialogue also didn’t flow well, and if there is one thing I <b>physically cannot read</b> it’s choppy dialogue.

So, yeah, that’s about it. Props to the author for putting sapphic girls into my favorite Shakespeare show, but the execution of the story and characters itself makes me cry, because, as said before, I wanted to like this so bad. So freaking bad. <blockquote> <img src="https://media1.tenor.com/images/03f6dbaece3904a751ca14142c53491e/tenor.gif?itemid=5466079" width="400" height="250" alt="description"/></blockquote>

I absolutely enjoyed Nothing Happened by Molly Booth. I am a big fan of Shakespeare, especially his comedies. This was a wonderful, modern retelling of Much Ado About Nothing. The tale has so many twists and the suspense of what was going to happen next keeps the reader enthralled. Will Ben and Bee end up together? Will Claudia and Hana? Will those have designed mischief take recourse to correct the problems that they’ve created? It was hard to put the book down waiting for what was going to happen next. And all the descriptions of camp and Maine make me desperately want to take a vacation to the lovely state. Ms. Booth’s version of this Shakespearean comedy is fun and entertaining with all the cute romance a person can handle.

Fast read that is just everything you'd want from a Shakespeare retelling! Molly Booth knows what she's doing, and I'm excited to read whatever else she puts out!

This is a fun, cute take on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Rumors fly at a summer camp in Maine, the hook-ups, the scheming, the mosquitos...everyone gets caught up in it - even the campers.