reviews_and_ramblings | The World is a Stage by Gail Sterling

This is listed as a Young Adult novel, but for reader from 16 years old and up, and it’s quite right since it’s a mix of life journey, like often in the Young Adult novels, but also of sex discovery. It’s also a very nice historical novel, but the type of history you usually find in the plays written in that time, like Shakespeare or Marlowe, an history that can be stretch for the needs of the story.

William is a 16 years old actor who plays the role of the young maiden in the quite repetitive plays of a small company. He is not the only one in the company to cover the female roles, but he is the only one that probably would like to do that also in his real life. William is in love with Jack, his male partner on the stage, but it’s a star eyed love, I think that William is more in love with Jack’s role, than Jack himself. And probably it’s also a question of age, William has reached that moment in life when he is wondered about the other sex, and it’s not that there are so many subjects of love around the poor neighbourhood where he lives. So yes, I had the feeling that Jack was not William’s real love, but more a convenience of some sort, and probably for this reason, when William realizes that his feelings are not mutual, he is not so much bothered.

Another reason could be that William has other problem in that moment. His estranged sister, the only living relative he has, is suddenly reappeared and she needs his help. She is whoring herself to provide for her daughter, a child she left in the country hoping to be able to collect her in a later time. At the same time, the company is invited to perform for the marriage of their patrons’ older son and heir, and at the country residence William is faced with a different life and different prospective; one man in particular, their patrons’ second son, Lord Edwin, a 20 years old young man who is having an illicit affair with a male servant.

The main difference of this story, and probably even a surprise, is that William is not an “asexual” character; often in this story, sex is something that everyone knows is there, but no one clearly refers to. Here instead, even if there are absolutely no graphic details, William is discovering and having sex, he is living among prostitutes and pimps, illicit affairs seem common and so on. The other realistic detail that makes this story even more interesting is that William is still an adolescent, 16 years old, and his love interests are older, 20 years and something. Even in this small detail the author decided to respect the story, not making William an improbably 18 years old boy behaving like a younger one for the custom of having heroes of “legal age”, when there was no legal age at all, it was no legal at all for that matter.

As I said, the story William and his friends and relatives are living resembles a bit the fictional plays they perform on stage, poor young actor falls in love for wealthy aristocrat. And as in the plays, there are a bit of trouble, but nothing they cannot overcome and in the end, the happily ever after is a must. Probably the happily ever after is more an happily for now, William and Lord Edwin’s love is as tender as impossible, and maybe the author has material for an “older” version of this story, telling us how these two heroes will manage to have the “for now” turns in “ever after”.

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Amazon: The World's a Stage

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Cover Art by Rose Lenoir