Much Ado About Soulmates is a modern day retelling of Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing with an interesting twist. Everyone sees the world in black and white, and once they meet their soulmate, they begin to see everything in color. 

This book caught my attention due to its uniqueness. I’ve heard of soulmate AU writing prompts on social media and seen TikTok skits but I have never read a full length book with one, so I was interested in checking it out. 

In line with Shakespeare’s style, this book had a lot of characters and perspectives to track. Sometimes that can be overwhelming but the POV switches are clearly marked and there is a character list at the front to reference, which I found helpful. I wish there was more substance to their friend group though. There were too many instances of “Remember that time we….. Remember when we….” for me to feel the cohesion. I felt like the newbie friend who doesn’t know any of the inside jokes. 

In terms of the romantic connections in the story, I like that the soulmate AU premise added insight into different types of relationships. There’s a fresh new relationship, a current relationship that’s burning bright, and an older relationship that’s fallen into “disrepair,” each with their own types of problems. But I feel the ending (which does not follow the ending of the original play) contradicted the book’s own statements about love and soulmates, and it left me wanting more closure than we actually got. 

Lastly, on a completely different note, I wanted Stacy to fall off the boat or for Ben to get sick on her! 

All in all, an interesting book that captures Shakespeare’s style with a modern twist! 

Thank you to Victory Editing and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!! My review on StoryGraph is already live and my Amazon review will be live as soon as Amazon approves it.

disclaimer: i never read shakespeare's much ado about nothing.

i wasn't expecting so many povs! i thought the story's focus would be divided by the two couples, but instead we have 8 povs—beatrice, imogen, ben, oliver, diego, aisha, tony, and donna.
i wasn't a fan at first, but halfway through, i resigned myself to it and ended up not minding it at all.

the soulmate thing? loved it. we get a world where it's black and white from the moment you're born until you meet your soulmate, at which point you finally see colours. if you never meet your soulmate, you will remain in a colourless world. if you do find them and then your soulmate dies, you also go back to a colourless world. this is a concept i've read for years on ao3, so it's pretty awesome to find this book.

ben and beatrice were interesting because none of their friends or family knew their story. to everyone else, they have always been friends. ones who bicker and seem unsupportive of one another, but friends.
for the past eight years, they've kept it quiet, and it worked because they didn't spent a lot of time together—at least until the wedding. misunderstandings played a huge role in their relationship.

the second couple oliver and imogen, seemed perfect on paper, but immediately you know that's not true. i did get frustrated with their relationship at the beginning, particularly with oliver. he wasn't a bad person, and he definitely cared and loved imogen, but. well. let's just say, i think the ending was perfect. then there's imogen. out of all the characters, i definitely felt the most connected with her. she loved oliver, but his world wasn't hers and it slowly wore her down—the fact she knew this, and tried anyway, hurt my heart.
becoming soulmates doesn't guarantee that everything will be rainbows and sunshine. it's easy to forget how important communication and compromise are in any relationship, and i love that we see the roots of these issues in an already established couple.

all in all, the writing was easy to read, if a little clunky, and while the romance was nice, the humour was not. i did not laugh once.

fyi stacey needs to be buried alive.

thank you Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the arc. my opinions are my own.

(posted on goodreads, storygraph, fable)

This is not my typical read because I usually do not read books under 300 pages, and I usually do not enjoy 3rd person, BUT....I was amazed at the retelling of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing--one of the most underrated of his plays (IMO).

Did I love this because it IS a retelling of my favorite Shakespeare play? YES!!
Did I love this because it is the OG "enemies-to-lovers" story? YES!!
Did I love this because in every scene I was trying to see how the author modernized important scenes from the original story? YES!!
Did I ABSOLUTELY LOVE how the ending played out? 1,000 times YES!!
Did I appreciate how they essentially created another "villain" in the story? YES!!

So, quite simply, if you enjoy Shakespeare or enemies-to-lovers or found family or a good wedding story, then this is for you. It is the story of Imogen and Oliver's on-location nuptials that brings together friends and family. But Oliver just happens to be a big star, so the film crew is there to record the entire week leading up to the big day. Within this story, so many of the wonderful scenes from the Shakespeare play are included, and I was there for every word and every page.
I hope to see more of this type of story from this pair of author sisters! Well done!

I also highly recommend picking up the OG play as well.

Thanks to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the advanced copy.

A modern day retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, with a fantastical twist on soulmates. This story follows an author called Bea, who is hesitant about the concept of soulmates because hers, Ben, broke her heart years ago. When Bea’s sister, Imogen, gets engaged to her own soulmate and plans a destination wedding where Bea and Ben are both invited, Bea has to face her past head on. Will her and Ben come together and finally see the world in all its wonderful colour?

I enjoyed the concept and the fantastical ‘you don’t see the world in colour until you meet your soulmate’ aspect of McLean’s story. I found this very unique and a good addition to a fresh modern twist on a story a lot of people are already familiar with. However, the story did feel a little convoluted for me, especially at the very start. We are introduced to a lot of characters very early on, who all get their own POVs at some point, within the same chapters too. The book is already structured that each chapter is a different day in the characters’ journey. And these chapters could get quite long. So unfortunately, I found myself losing track of who was who. But it was very sweet story, and I’ll always be a sucker for anything to do with fate, destiny, and soulmates (it’s something I firmly believe in real life so I couldn’t not love that aspect). While it did lose me at times at the start, McLean’s story is a uniquely solid idea with cute and funny elements throughout. And let’s not forget the adorable cover 🥰

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this story early, I am very grateful for the opportunity.

I have long been fascinated by idea of soulmates, so I was thrilled to find this book on Netgalley.
The idea that there is one person in the whole world that can literally allow you to see things in colour is a really interesting premise that this book explores and how the idea that you may be soulmates, but is it enough to base your whole life around?
Bea thinks not, she met her soulmate a long time ago and through a series of miscommunication and misunderstandings chose to carve a life away from him, while her sister believes in it totally, she met her soulmate and turned her life upside down to accommodate his life, but at what cost to herself?
The book progress through a few days and truths are revealed and lives will be changed. I would definitely recommend this book, especially if you enjoy Shakespeare .

My fanfiction loving heart was so excited to see that someone has brought the soulmate trope into mainstream writing (how has alphaverse made it to romance novels and soulmate tropes haven't??), and Shakespeare is the perfect place for it to start.

In this retelling of Much Ado about Nothing, McLean leans into both the comedy of errors of it all (there is nothing more comedy of errors than reality TV) and the difficulties that a soulmate trope would lead to - does knowing you have a soulmate mean that you adjust your life for them or that you will certainly work out?

I'd love to see McLean continue this theme with other classic pieces of literature - and perhaps to see some characters who are left with a bittersweet ending to get a second chance at love. Thanks to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the early copy to review.