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Lady Macbeth
Win a free print copy of this book!
2 days and 23:30:43
5 copies available
U.S. only
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.
The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men.
The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.
The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive.
But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.
She does not know this yet. But she will.
The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men.
The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.
The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive.
But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.
She does not know this yet. But she will.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published August 13, 2024
About the author
Ava Reid
12 books5,180 followersAva Reid is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of gothic fantasies, including A Study in Drowning, Juniper & Thorn, and Lady Macbeth. She lives in California.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,206 reviews
June 6, 2024
This was one of my most anticipated books of the year because of my love for Ava Reid and Lady Macbeth, but this has been one of the most disappointing books I have ever completed. I promise no one is as upset as me about this rating and review, but it feels false for me to go about this any other way. I have 52 notes on my arc copy and every single one of them is a criticism. There are few things that I hate more than “feminist” reimaginings that take away the agency and power of powerful, ambitious, cunning female villains. This is one of those books. In
Macbeth
, Lady Macbeth is gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing her way to the top. She is one of the most iconic characters of Shakespeare because she is not defined by a man, the man is defined by her.
Before going further with my review I will note that I went into this having only read the synopsis and knowing that I love Ava Reid and have enjoyed her other books. I am in no way saying that Reid holds the views of the protagonist, I am just saying that I do not think that the protagonist's prejudices were well done. I also fully expected a more accurate Lady Macbeth retelling and a lot of the issues I had were specifically because this was marketed as a Lady Macbeth retelling. I absolutely adore Lady Macbeth as a character in Macbeth, so I was severely disappointed when her personality was not true to the source in any way. You may not feel the same especially if you go into the book knowing that this is a very loose version of Lady Macbeth or if that’s not a big deal to you in general. It is unfortunately just something I couldn’t look past.
This book is not about this Lady Macbeth – it is a character assassination, making our ambitious middle-aged Scotswoman who calls the shots into a 17-year-old French girl (this may seem like a silly thing to note, but it is very important as all Scottish people are evil brutish idiots) with neither agency nor ambition. This version of Lady Macbeth is also incredibly xenophobic and loves to continually call other women ugly. While I understand that people are xenophobic, I have two major issues with it being used in this book: first, there is nothing from the source material that would give any reason for Lady Macbeth to hate the Scots and I found it to be a very jarring addition and second, it never challenged in any way and every Scotsman we meet falls into these brutish xenophobic stereotypes. Without seeing this viewpoint challenged in any way - even if it was just the readers seeing a single Scotsman be a good person - this part left a really bad taste in my mouth. While I read Macbeth as a better person than Roscille did, I have some weird feelings calling him a “good Scot” because of the end of his character arc. I think this could’ve been handled a lot better and it would’ve had both parties be less one dimensional. I found this lacked a lot of nuance that I've come to expect with Reid's books and, for that, I was disappointed.
In this rendition, Lady Macbeth is defined only by the men in her life. Where is the woman who told her husband he was “too full of the milk of human kindness” because he didn’t want to COMMIT MURDER? Where is my unhinged girly being torn apart by guilt? In this book, she doesn’t emasculate her husband and doesn’t even go a little bit crazy. She’s watered down and turned into nothing. Even this is a better reimagining of Lady Macbeth.
I have a lot of problems with this other than the character assassination. For one, it is insanely xenophobic. Scottish people are continually seen as stupid, violent brutes and there is no nuance to that. Even the love interest, the only man who is seen in a positive light (EVEN THOUGH HE LITERALLY TREATS HER AS A POSSESSION), isn’t fully Scottish. She did a similar thing in A Study in Drowning, but this was so so so much worse. It rubbed me the wrong way and just made me feel really bad for Scottish people? Additionally, the way that men are handled in this book is… off putting to say the least. The general vibe of this book is 'woman good! :) man bad! :(', but there is very little that substantiates this. It’s like we, as the reader, are just to accept that men suck as a universal truth without actually seeing them suck? We constantly hear about how much these men suck then, when Roscille actually has to interact with (the majority of) them, they’re just underdeveloped husks? Or over the top evil in a bit of a weird way. I was genuinely so confused the entire time. I can’t tell if it was man hating (in a not fun or justified way unfortunately) or Scottish hating or both? It feels like both, especially in regards to Macbeth. It was just really confusing and made the whole message feel incredibly shallow. This weird xenophobia is brought more to light when we watch her very boring insta-lovey love interest that she has literally no chemistry with (who isn’t a full Scot!) treat her like she is property. Like I get she’s choosing him because he’s hot, but he’s still really misogynistic towards her and it’s okay because he’s a feminine stick boy and not a brutish man. I get it, you like more feminine guys, that’s completely fine, but the weird hatred towards other men and double standard was very off putting. The whole thing was honestly off putting.
While I usually enjoy Ava Reid’s writing, it felt incredibly shallow here. It may be because of the passive nature of her writing, but I could not connect to anyone in any way. The story was told, but there is was no action. It’s like we, and Roscille, were being pulled along by a current. I really did not enjoy this. I wish I could justify giving this more than 1 star, but here we are.
I know that books are different for everyone, but I would not recommend this if you have a strong love for Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. There were so many ways that this story could be reimagined in an interesting way to highlight a powerful, iconic woman, sadly this wasn’t one of them. Yes, I know that stuff like this happened historically and that the world is a very sexist place (and was even more so hundreds of years ago), but I cannot fathom why Lady Macbeth was used to represent this point when there is nothing in her story that suggests this.
book out: August 06 2024
Thank you NetGalley and Del Ray for the advanced readers copy
Before going further with my review I will note that I went into this having only read the synopsis and knowing that I love Ava Reid and have enjoyed her other books. I am in no way saying that Reid holds the views of the protagonist, I am just saying that I do not think that the protagonist's prejudices were well done. I also fully expected a more accurate Lady Macbeth retelling and a lot of the issues I had were specifically because this was marketed as a Lady Macbeth retelling. I absolutely adore Lady Macbeth as a character in Macbeth, so I was severely disappointed when her personality was not true to the source in any way. You may not feel the same especially if you go into the book knowing that this is a very loose version of Lady Macbeth or if that’s not a big deal to you in general. It is unfortunately just something I couldn’t look past.
This book is not about this Lady Macbeth – it is a character assassination, making our ambitious middle-aged Scotswoman who calls the shots into a 17-year-old French girl (this may seem like a silly thing to note, but it is very important as all Scottish people are evil brutish idiots) with neither agency nor ambition. This version of Lady Macbeth is also incredibly xenophobic and loves to continually call other women ugly. While I understand that people are xenophobic, I have two major issues with it being used in this book: first, there is nothing from the source material that would give any reason for Lady Macbeth to hate the Scots and I found it to be a very jarring addition and second, it never challenged in any way and every Scotsman we meet falls into these brutish xenophobic stereotypes. Without seeing this viewpoint challenged in any way - even if it was just the readers seeing a single Scotsman be a good person - this part left a really bad taste in my mouth. While I read Macbeth as a better person than Roscille did, I have some weird feelings calling him a “good Scot” because of the end of his character arc. I think this could’ve been handled a lot better and it would’ve had both parties be less one dimensional. I found this lacked a lot of nuance that I've come to expect with Reid's books and, for that, I was disappointed.
In this rendition, Lady Macbeth is defined only by the men in her life. Where is the woman who told her husband he was “too full of the milk of human kindness” because he didn’t want to COMMIT MURDER? Where is my unhinged girly being torn apart by guilt? In this book, she doesn’t emasculate her husband and doesn’t even go a little bit crazy. She’s watered down and turned into nothing. Even this is a better reimagining of Lady Macbeth.
I have a lot of problems with this other than the character assassination. For one, it is insanely xenophobic. Scottish people are continually seen as stupid, violent brutes and there is no nuance to that. Even the love interest, the only man who is seen in a positive light (EVEN THOUGH HE LITERALLY TREATS HER AS A POSSESSION), isn’t fully Scottish. She did a similar thing in A Study in Drowning, but this was so so so much worse. It rubbed me the wrong way and just made me feel really bad for Scottish people? Additionally, the way that men are handled in this book is… off putting to say the least. The general vibe of this book is 'woman good! :) man bad! :(', but there is very little that substantiates this. It’s like we, as the reader, are just to accept that men suck as a universal truth without actually seeing them suck? We constantly hear about how much these men suck then, when Roscille actually has to interact with (the majority of) them, they’re just underdeveloped husks? Or over the top evil in a bit of a weird way. I was genuinely so confused the entire time. I can’t tell if it was man hating (in a not fun or justified way unfortunately) or Scottish hating or both? It feels like both, especially in regards to Macbeth. It was just really confusing and made the whole message feel incredibly shallow. This weird xenophobia is brought more to light when we watch her very boring insta-lovey love interest that she has literally no chemistry with (who isn’t a full Scot!) treat her like she is property. Like I get she’s choosing him because he’s hot, but he’s still really misogynistic towards her and it’s okay because he’s a feminine stick boy and not a brutish man. I get it, you like more feminine guys, that’s completely fine, but the weird hatred towards other men and double standard was very off putting. The whole thing was honestly off putting.
While I usually enjoy Ava Reid’s writing, it felt incredibly shallow here. It may be because of the passive nature of her writing, but I could not connect to anyone in any way. The story was told, but there is was no action. It’s like we, and Roscille, were being pulled along by a current. I really did not enjoy this. I wish I could justify giving this more than 1 star, but here we are.
I know that books are different for everyone, but I would not recommend this if you have a strong love for Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. There were so many ways that this story could be reimagined in an interesting way to highlight a powerful, iconic woman, sadly this wasn’t one of them. Yes, I know that stuff like this happened historically and that the world is a very sexist place (and was even more so hundreds of years ago), but I cannot fathom why Lady Macbeth was used to represent this point when there is nothing in her story that suggests this.
book out: August 06 2024
Thank you NetGalley and Del Ray for the advanced readers copy
September 10, 2024
i believe in ava reid supremacy. this book wrecked me in the best way
thank you to edelweiss for providing the arc. full review to come
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thank you to edelweiss for providing the arc. full review to come
Follow me on Instagram
August 20, 2024
4.5 stars
No one is doing gothic, atmospheric fantasy like Ava Reid. Yet again, they've knocked it out of the park.
I'll prime this by saying that I was a bit wary going into this book, despite Ava Reid being one of my favorite authors, because I don't know nearly anything about Macbeth. Never read it. Watched one of the movies once. In fact, I had meant to re-watch the movie before reading this book and I knew I wanted to watch 'the kenneth branagh one' and it took me more than a week to realize I was thinking of Hamlet, not Macbeth. All of which is to say that if you're looking for a review to tell you how this holds up alongside the source material, I can't help you; but, if you're curious to know if you can read Lady Macbeth without knowing the source material, that I can maybe help with.
I won't tease it, the answer is yes. I have a layman's vague memory of Macbeth and nothing more, but it didn't negatively impact my experience at all. While I can reasonably assume that there are certainly references and homages to the source material that would deepen my understanding of this text, I never felt that while I was reading Lady Macbeth. This book stands on its merits as a strong narrative in its own right.
Ava Reid is back at it again with lush, gothic prose and you'll find a lot of what Reid has shown to be her signature themes in this story: a girl trying to survive in a world determined to stamp her out, the ways in which women are villified for the desires of men, a truly flawed main character, the hope and light that love can bring and the strength in continuing to seek it in a bleak world, among others.
Lady Macbeth grabbed me from the very beginning and didn't let go. I spent an entire Saturday doing nothing but reading this book cover to cover. I never should have doubted for a moment that Reid would keep me glued to my seat for every page.
No one is doing gothic, atmospheric fantasy like Ava Reid. Yet again, they've knocked it out of the park.
I'll prime this by saying that I was a bit wary going into this book, despite Ava Reid being one of my favorite authors, because I don't know nearly anything about Macbeth. Never read it. Watched one of the movies once. In fact, I had meant to re-watch the movie before reading this book and I knew I wanted to watch 'the kenneth branagh one' and it took me more than a week to realize I was thinking of Hamlet, not Macbeth. All of which is to say that if you're looking for a review to tell you how this holds up alongside the source material, I can't help you; but, if you're curious to know if you can read Lady Macbeth without knowing the source material, that I can maybe help with.
I won't tease it, the answer is yes. I have a layman's vague memory of Macbeth and nothing more, but it didn't negatively impact my experience at all. While I can reasonably assume that there are certainly references and homages to the source material that would deepen my understanding of this text, I never felt that while I was reading Lady Macbeth. This book stands on its merits as a strong narrative in its own right.
Ava Reid is back at it again with lush, gothic prose and you'll find a lot of what Reid has shown to be her signature themes in this story: a girl trying to survive in a world determined to stamp her out, the ways in which women are villified for the desires of men, a truly flawed main character, the hope and light that love can bring and the strength in continuing to seek it in a bleak world, among others.
Lady Macbeth grabbed me from the very beginning and didn't let go. I spent an entire Saturday doing nothing but reading this book cover to cover. I never should have doubted for a moment that Reid would keep me glued to my seat for every page.
August 17, 2024
Did somebody say “A study on drowning” s brilliant author Ava Reid decided to give another perspective to Shakespeare’s one of the most controversial plays? As a respond: firstly I screamed yes, then pumped my fist. Secondly, I screamed louder for having a chance to read earlier copy of this retelling made me intrigued especially that lady in veil’s penetrating looks on the cover.
Here we go: if you don’t read the original manuscript or not much knowing about the main plot of Macbeth, just go blind and consider this another thrilling fantasy focused on Lady Macbeth which will be considered feminist retelling and it could probably fuel their excitement even though true devoted fans of the original manuscript wouldn’t agree.
Lady Macbeth’s main plot focuses on Roscille, a beautiful girl presumed bastard and also cursed with her presumed witchy powers. The story opens with her being sent to Glammis where to Macbeth’s castle in a carriage to attend on her own wedding ceremony with him. For years she became a woman what her father defined her to be: a girl cursed by witch who can be used by his own politic maneuvers like he’s Dr. Frankenstein who just created his own monster but as soon as she steps in Glammis, she starts her own path destined for her by demanding her place in a world conquered and reigned by powerful men. Could she find her way among them, manipulating her own husband not to consummate their marriage by misdirecting him with other missions he may lead even though Macbeth thinks he is in the control by using his own wife as secret weapon for enacting his schemes.
Who’s in the real control? Who’s the puppet master hiding behind shadows?
This thought provoking and highly unconventional retelling of the story not only reflects a woman’s self exploration in a world where power thirst people shedding blood to manipulate their reign, it’s also sad, lonely young woman’s fight to find her way in the foggy road that spicies up with romantic elements and let’s not forget the mythical figures, Scottish folklore blended in the execution with charming fantasy elements like witches, dragons, curses.
If you’re sold by these definitions, come and enjoy the world of calculated mind games, vicious scheming emphasized with supernatural elements in a dark gothic atmosphere!
So far I enjoyed this modern version shedding a light on one of the most unforgettable and in my opinion underrated fictional characters.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing me this stunning work’s digital reviewer copy in exchange my honest opinions.
Here we go: if you don’t read the original manuscript or not much knowing about the main plot of Macbeth, just go blind and consider this another thrilling fantasy focused on Lady Macbeth which will be considered feminist retelling and it could probably fuel their excitement even though true devoted fans of the original manuscript wouldn’t agree.
Lady Macbeth’s main plot focuses on Roscille, a beautiful girl presumed bastard and also cursed with her presumed witchy powers. The story opens with her being sent to Glammis where to Macbeth’s castle in a carriage to attend on her own wedding ceremony with him. For years she became a woman what her father defined her to be: a girl cursed by witch who can be used by his own politic maneuvers like he’s Dr. Frankenstein who just created his own monster but as soon as she steps in Glammis, she starts her own path destined for her by demanding her place in a world conquered and reigned by powerful men. Could she find her way among them, manipulating her own husband not to consummate their marriage by misdirecting him with other missions he may lead even though Macbeth thinks he is in the control by using his own wife as secret weapon for enacting his schemes.
Who’s in the real control? Who’s the puppet master hiding behind shadows?
This thought provoking and highly unconventional retelling of the story not only reflects a woman’s self exploration in a world where power thirst people shedding blood to manipulate their reign, it’s also sad, lonely young woman’s fight to find her way in the foggy road that spicies up with romantic elements and let’s not forget the mythical figures, Scottish folklore blended in the execution with charming fantasy elements like witches, dragons, curses.
If you’re sold by these definitions, come and enjoy the world of calculated mind games, vicious scheming emphasized with supernatural elements in a dark gothic atmosphere!
So far I enjoyed this modern version shedding a light on one of the most unforgettable and in my opinion underrated fictional characters.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing me this stunning work’s digital reviewer copy in exchange my honest opinions.
January 21, 2024
Okay, now what was the point of any of that.
It doesn't even have the Macduff "untimely ripped" line, you guys!
This probably isn't a good book to read if you like the play Macbeth or the country of Scotland or even just the experience of not being bored as you read a book. If you don't care about Macbeth and you're fine with literally countless instances of Scotland/Scottish people being portrayed as violent and uncivilized and if you want a book about the struggles of being a hot waifish French teenage girl who's trying to find her place in the world, I guess you COULD read this book. But like, why would you. What's the point.
That's the overarching question I have about all of this. What's the point? What's the point of this story tying itself to Macbeth as a retelling or reimagining? What's the point of reimagining Lady Macbeth as a teenage girl named Roscille and Macbeth himself as a comically large, hulking, scary violent man who And what's the point of claiming any of these changes somehow makes this book a feminist retelling? What's the point of the DRAGON? No, really. That one I want an explanation for.
So what is this book. GREAT QUESTION. It's a version of Macbeth where Lady Macbeth, here known as Roscille, is a beautiful bastard French girl believed to be cursed and maybe also believed to have witch powers. She arrives at Macbeth's castle to marry him and promptly starts trying to find ways to 1) avoid having to consummate the marriage by giving him different seemingly-impossible quests 2) maybe scheme, a little bit. The quests end up spurring on a lot of what we're familiar with as the plot of the play version of Macbeth, and I guess so does the scheming.
The scheming is, to be honest, really annoying, because Roscille is purportedly smart. One of the first things we're told about her is that she's really good with faces and names and little details about people. When we get to the end of the book and she does not know anyone's faces or names or little details, this is merely lampshaded as a sign of how much being in Scotland has changed her. Sure, we could go with that. I would probably call it a show/tell discrepancy, but why not chalk it up to character development! Yeah!
Anyway, there are a lot of times within this book when Roscille tells herself that she's being smart by asking a subtle and non-suspicious question, and then she follows it up IMMEDIATELY with an extremely un-subtle and suspicious question. Smart things that smart people do. It's hard to get invested in the machinations of the main character when they're so badly machinated. I also never got a sense of why she's doing what she's doing, beyond being afraid of having to consummate her marriage or hoping to accumulate more power in her new role. But she's so ignorant about the new location she's in that her attempts to get power just keep back firing. It's frustrating, especially if she's supposed to be wily and smart.
Oh, and there's a guy who can turn into a dragon. I don't have a lot to say about it. Yes, he's the love interest. Yes, he's the singular non-garbage man in this book. It is...what it is.
This book, instead of feeling like a feminist and fresh take on the source material, feels like it constructs an even more patriarchal and sexist world in which Roscille has significantly less agency than the traditional Lady Macbeth. Why? All so that she can eventually break free and get some agency at the end. I guess we should all clap! I don't really get what the point of this is or why it's...necessary. I mean I guess if you resonated with this story, more power to you....?
I personally would be more interested in a reimagining that's interested in contending with the ways women (either in 11th century Europe or in Shakespeare's plays) seek, attain, and exert power. Focusing a re-imagining instead on a girl who is specifically stripped of agency and experience feels...weird. Like yeah, I know the patriarchy is a thing, but this book is so determined to show how bad Roscille's position in society is as a (upper class) woman that it feels like we're inventing NEW kinds of misogyny.
And speaking of weird, it feels like there's some weird gender essentialism going on in this book, tied up with the very weird anti-Scots vibes. Every man in this book except the half-English love interest is a brutish Scotsman who hates women and loves battle scars and fighting and lapping up the blood of their enemies. Roscille, our main character, is a delicate noblewoman who is tiny (especially in comparison to Macbeth, who is never not HUGE in this book) and who starts off not even knowing how to get dressed independently. At one point, after witnessing violence against a woman, she wishes she were a man so she could enact violence back onto them. Because only men do violence? Is that the implication? I guess so, because that thought is literally never challenged!
If this book is trying to be feminist it feels like we should discuss the women characters it introduces. This will not take long, because there are not very many women in this book. There's Hawise, Roscille's first handmaiden and a Norse "spoil of war," who disappears very early on (But not before we're told about her husky Norse shoulders like 3 different times!). There's the three witches, of course. There's mentions of Roscille's father's wife, who is considered to be "mad" after enduring several attempts at balancing her humors. There's Roscille's second handmaiden, who literally looks the same as Hawise (shoulders and all). I'm...pretty sure that's it. Roscille is the only one who's pretty, by the way.
There's an attempt in this story to do something kind of interesting with the witches, but it also lead to me wondering why this book wasn't a retelling of some other story. Like Bluebeard. It would have been so easy to make this story Bluebeard. SO many Bluebeard elements are already present. The keys?! The suspicious basement??
Honestly I just don't understand why this is a Macbeth retelling in the first place. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both feel like entirely different characters from their play versions. There's not much interest in backing up the play with historical details - this book isn't any more historically accurate than the play was. The plot follows the beats of the play, kind of, but without any real enthusiasm. I kind of think this book would have been better off as a Bluebeard retelling or EVEN! An original story that wasn't marketed as connected to anything else in particular. Maybe with less Scotland bashing. Boy howdy it's uncomfortable how Scotland is talked about in this book!
I also think the writing is just...bad. This may be partly subjective, but isn't everything? I personally cannot stand the prose or writing style of this book. I don't even know if I can explain why, it just constantly bugged me. I was fine with the writing in A Study in Drowning, but something about the narration here left me bored and yet annoyed at every step of the way. The pacing also dragged a lot in the middle of the book, which exacerbated the issues for me. And there are continuity errors, and repetitive descriptions, and overly on-the-head metaphors and imagery...I was not jiving with the writing, let's sum it up that way.
If you want to read a gothic fantasy with a girl who's Too Beautiful For Her Own Good and a boy who is the One (1) Non-Garbage Man, and if you're also set on reading something by Ava Reid, maybe read A Study in Drowning instead. That book has problems, but it at least has some merits. This? Please don't read this. I cannot emphasize how much I did not enjoy and do not recommend this book.
It doesn't even have the Macduff "untimely ripped" line, you guys!
This probably isn't a good book to read if you like the play Macbeth or the country of Scotland or even just the experience of not being bored as you read a book. If you don't care about Macbeth and you're fine with literally countless instances of Scotland/Scottish people being portrayed as violent and uncivilized and if you want a book about the struggles of being a hot waifish French teenage girl who's trying to find her place in the world, I guess you COULD read this book. But like, why would you. What's the point.
That's the overarching question I have about all of this. What's the point? What's the point of this story tying itself to Macbeth as a retelling or reimagining? What's the point of reimagining Lady Macbeth as a teenage girl named Roscille and Macbeth himself as a comically large, hulking, scary violent man who And what's the point of claiming any of these changes somehow makes this book a feminist retelling? What's the point of the DRAGON? No, really. That one I want an explanation for.
So what is this book. GREAT QUESTION. It's a version of Macbeth where Lady Macbeth, here known as Roscille, is a beautiful bastard French girl believed to be cursed and maybe also believed to have witch powers. She arrives at Macbeth's castle to marry him and promptly starts trying to find ways to 1) avoid having to consummate the marriage by giving him different seemingly-impossible quests 2) maybe scheme, a little bit. The quests end up spurring on a lot of what we're familiar with as the plot of the play version of Macbeth, and I guess so does the scheming.
The scheming is, to be honest, really annoying, because Roscille is purportedly smart. One of the first things we're told about her is that she's really good with faces and names and little details about people. When we get to the end of the book and she does not know anyone's faces or names or little details, this is merely lampshaded as a sign of how much being in Scotland has changed her. Sure, we could go with that. I would probably call it a show/tell discrepancy, but why not chalk it up to character development! Yeah!
Anyway, there are a lot of times within this book when Roscille tells herself that she's being smart by asking a subtle and non-suspicious question, and then she follows it up IMMEDIATELY with an extremely un-subtle and suspicious question. Smart things that smart people do. It's hard to get invested in the machinations of the main character when they're so badly machinated. I also never got a sense of why she's doing what she's doing, beyond being afraid of having to consummate her marriage or hoping to accumulate more power in her new role. But she's so ignorant about the new location she's in that her attempts to get power just keep back firing. It's frustrating, especially if she's supposed to be wily and smart.
Oh, and there's a guy who can turn into a dragon. I don't have a lot to say about it. Yes, he's the love interest. Yes, he's the singular non-garbage man in this book. It is...what it is.
This book, instead of feeling like a feminist and fresh take on the source material, feels like it constructs an even more patriarchal and sexist world in which Roscille has significantly less agency than the traditional Lady Macbeth. Why? All so that she can eventually break free and get some agency at the end. I guess we should all clap! I don't really get what the point of this is or why it's...necessary. I mean I guess if you resonated with this story, more power to you....?
I personally would be more interested in a reimagining that's interested in contending with the ways women (either in 11th century Europe or in Shakespeare's plays) seek, attain, and exert power. Focusing a re-imagining instead on a girl who is specifically stripped of agency and experience feels...weird. Like yeah, I know the patriarchy is a thing, but this book is so determined to show how bad Roscille's position in society is as a (upper class) woman that it feels like we're inventing NEW kinds of misogyny.
And speaking of weird, it feels like there's some weird gender essentialism going on in this book, tied up with the very weird anti-Scots vibes. Every man in this book except the half-English love interest is a brutish Scotsman who hates women and loves battle scars and fighting and lapping up the blood of their enemies. Roscille, our main character, is a delicate noblewoman who is tiny (especially in comparison to Macbeth, who is never not HUGE in this book) and who starts off not even knowing how to get dressed independently. At one point, after witnessing violence against a woman, she wishes she were a man so she could enact violence back onto them. Because only men do violence? Is that the implication? I guess so, because that thought is literally never challenged!
If this book is trying to be feminist it feels like we should discuss the women characters it introduces. This will not take long, because there are not very many women in this book. There's Hawise, Roscille's first handmaiden and a Norse "spoil of war," who disappears very early on (But not before we're told about her husky Norse shoulders like 3 different times!). There's the three witches, of course. There's mentions of Roscille's father's wife, who is considered to be "mad" after enduring several attempts at balancing her humors. There's Roscille's second handmaiden, who literally looks the same as Hawise (shoulders and all). I'm...pretty sure that's it. Roscille is the only one who's pretty, by the way.
There's an attempt in this story to do something kind of interesting with the witches, but it also lead to me wondering why this book wasn't a retelling of some other story. Like Bluebeard. It would have been so easy to make this story Bluebeard. SO many Bluebeard elements are already present. The keys?! The suspicious basement??
Honestly I just don't understand why this is a Macbeth retelling in the first place. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both feel like entirely different characters from their play versions. There's not much interest in backing up the play with historical details - this book isn't any more historically accurate than the play was. The plot follows the beats of the play, kind of, but without any real enthusiasm. I kind of think this book would have been better off as a Bluebeard retelling or EVEN! An original story that wasn't marketed as connected to anything else in particular. Maybe with less Scotland bashing. Boy howdy it's uncomfortable how Scotland is talked about in this book!
I also think the writing is just...bad. This may be partly subjective, but isn't everything? I personally cannot stand the prose or writing style of this book. I don't even know if I can explain why, it just constantly bugged me. I was fine with the writing in A Study in Drowning, but something about the narration here left me bored and yet annoyed at every step of the way. The pacing also dragged a lot in the middle of the book, which exacerbated the issues for me. And there are continuity errors, and repetitive descriptions, and overly on-the-head metaphors and imagery...I was not jiving with the writing, let's sum it up that way.
If you want to read a gothic fantasy with a girl who's Too Beautiful For Her Own Good and a boy who is the One (1) Non-Garbage Man, and if you're also set on reading something by Ava Reid, maybe read A Study in Drowning instead. That book has problems, but it at least has some merits. This? Please don't read this. I cannot emphasize how much I did not enjoy and do not recommend this book.
August 21, 2024
Shakespeare’s great female character, Lady Macbeth, is a powerhouse of a woman. Bold and audacious, she looks her warrior husband in the eye and, when he fears to reach out and grasp the destiny laid before him, she tells him to ‘screw his courage to the sticking place’ and commit the murder they both feel must be done to gain the throne the Three Witches have told Macbeth will be his. Usually cast as a middle-aged or older woman, she has been portrayed by such luminaries of stage and screen as Frances McDormand and Dame Judi Dench.
It’s a shame such a woman doesn’t appear in Ava Reid’s latest novel, a semi-historical fantasy novel curiously named Lady Macbeth. Though the historical Lady Macbeth has a name- Gruoch Ingen Boite- Reid saw fit to make her Lady anew. Instead of a strong Scottish woman of noble birth, Reid’s Lady is Roscille, an illegitimate daughter of a French lord. She is all of seventeen years old and is altogether too beautiful for words. She can also drive men mad with the power of her eyes, and is just too, too clever for her sex, because obviously women were never allowed to speak their minds in the medieval era.
I can imagine that such women as Æthelflæd Lady of Mercia, Judith of Flanders, Gunnhildr Gormsdóttir, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Joan of Arc, or any of the outspoken women of Shakespeare’s time, up to and including Elizabeth I herself, would take issue with the idea that they had to keep their mouths shut because “that’s just what women did”.
But that’s neither here nor there. Instead of a mature woman unafraid to speak her mind, we get a seventeen-year-old girl sent into the primitive land known as Scotland, where all the men are brutal, barbaric brutes who do little but fight over bits of barren land. The constant xenophobia directed against Scottish people is utterly baffling- especially when the only man who isn’t a savage barbarian with features like broken rocks is a half-Englishman. What, pray tell, in the text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth gives the impression of endless violence being done by every Scottish man?
Also baffling is the lack of women in the book. Apparently, between bouts of violence, these Scottish men do all the spinning, weaving, sewing, and child-rearing that would normally have been done by women, because there are no women in this castle and hardly any in the story. We’re told that the Scottish noblewomen are allowed no servants and must do everything themselves, and it’s not the done thing in Scotland to even have women in the castle. This is because of… reasons. Story reasons. Because if little Roscille wasn’t all by her lonesome, an older woman might come along and tell her to buck up and show her that a woman’s power isn’t made solely of flirtation and “womanly wiles”. Shakespeare’s Lady continually urges Macbeth to reach for power, to set aside his guilt, and become the king he is prophesied to be. She does this on page and on stage without faltering. Roscille makes one suggestion to her Macbeth, and another suggestion to another man, and though we’re told she speaks up at council meetings, it’s never on page. So often, she’s shivering in a corner or getting her arms tangled up in her gowns. More than once she needs to be rescued by a man. Too often, she is afraid to speak up, use her witchy ways, or otherwise take the power she could have if she would only take action. Any kind of action not prompted by the men around her.
In the end, Lady Macbeth feels less like Shakespeare’s Macbeth retold, and more like a Bluebeard story. If that were the case, Roscille’s lack of agency might make more sense. Macbeth’s brutality might sense. The isolation in the castle might make more sense. As a Bluebeard story, this would be more successful.
Alas, this is meant to be a tale of Macbeth, for through this lens, the story fails. Roscille is a pale shadow of the Ladies Macbeth who have come before. The historical inaccuracies are legion- for example, Æthelstan, Rex Anglorum makes an appearance despite having died in 939 CE (a full century before Macbeth ruled in Scotland), and clan tartans appear despite not having been developed until the Victorian era. Scots and Scottish Gaelic are consistently confused despite being entirely different languages. And I cannot forgive a book that takes the myth of jus prima nocta and turns it into a plot point. Given all this, it's difficult to escape the feeling that the “research materials” for this book consisted of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart and a few episodes of the Starz series Outlander.
There are a lot of questions I have for this book. Why is the lady seventeen? Why does she have so little agency? Why are there no other women? Why are the witches where they are? Why is there a dragon? Why does the author hate Scottish men? But mostly I wonder, what was the point of this? At the end of it, all we have is, as Shakespeare might say, a tale “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for the eARC. Receipt of the free ARC did not affect my opinion of this book.
It’s a shame such a woman doesn’t appear in Ava Reid’s latest novel, a semi-historical fantasy novel curiously named Lady Macbeth. Though the historical Lady Macbeth has a name- Gruoch Ingen Boite- Reid saw fit to make her Lady anew. Instead of a strong Scottish woman of noble birth, Reid’s Lady is Roscille, an illegitimate daughter of a French lord. She is all of seventeen years old and is altogether too beautiful for words. She can also drive men mad with the power of her eyes, and is just too, too clever for her sex, because obviously women were never allowed to speak their minds in the medieval era.
I can imagine that such women as Æthelflæd Lady of Mercia, Judith of Flanders, Gunnhildr Gormsdóttir, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Joan of Arc, or any of the outspoken women of Shakespeare’s time, up to and including Elizabeth I herself, would take issue with the idea that they had to keep their mouths shut because “that’s just what women did”.
But that’s neither here nor there. Instead of a mature woman unafraid to speak her mind, we get a seventeen-year-old girl sent into the primitive land known as Scotland, where all the men are brutal, barbaric brutes who do little but fight over bits of barren land. The constant xenophobia directed against Scottish people is utterly baffling- especially when the only man who isn’t a savage barbarian with features like broken rocks is a half-Englishman. What, pray tell, in the text of Shakespeare’s Macbeth gives the impression of endless violence being done by every Scottish man?
Also baffling is the lack of women in the book. Apparently, between bouts of violence, these Scottish men do all the spinning, weaving, sewing, and child-rearing that would normally have been done by women, because there are no women in this castle and hardly any in the story. We’re told that the Scottish noblewomen are allowed no servants and must do everything themselves, and it’s not the done thing in Scotland to even have women in the castle. This is because of… reasons. Story reasons. Because if little Roscille wasn’t all by her lonesome, an older woman might come along and tell her to buck up and show her that a woman’s power isn’t made solely of flirtation and “womanly wiles”. Shakespeare’s Lady continually urges Macbeth to reach for power, to set aside his guilt, and become the king he is prophesied to be. She does this on page and on stage without faltering. Roscille makes one suggestion to her Macbeth, and another suggestion to another man, and though we’re told she speaks up at council meetings, it’s never on page. So often, she’s shivering in a corner or getting her arms tangled up in her gowns. More than once she needs to be rescued by a man. Too often, she is afraid to speak up, use her witchy ways, or otherwise take the power she could have if she would only take action. Any kind of action not prompted by the men around her.
In the end, Lady Macbeth feels less like Shakespeare’s Macbeth retold, and more like a Bluebeard story. If that were the case, Roscille’s lack of agency might make more sense. Macbeth’s brutality might sense. The isolation in the castle might make more sense. As a Bluebeard story, this would be more successful.
Alas, this is meant to be a tale of Macbeth, for through this lens, the story fails. Roscille is a pale shadow of the Ladies Macbeth who have come before. The historical inaccuracies are legion- for example, Æthelstan, Rex Anglorum makes an appearance despite having died in 939 CE (a full century before Macbeth ruled in Scotland), and clan tartans appear despite not having been developed until the Victorian era. Scots and Scottish Gaelic are consistently confused despite being entirely different languages. And I cannot forgive a book that takes the myth of jus prima nocta and turns it into a plot point. Given all this, it's difficult to escape the feeling that the “research materials” for this book consisted of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart and a few episodes of the Starz series Outlander.
There are a lot of questions I have for this book. Why is the lady seventeen? Why does she have so little agency? Why are there no other women? Why are the witches where they are? Why is there a dragon? Why does the author hate Scottish men? But mostly I wonder, what was the point of this? At the end of it, all we have is, as Shakespeare might say, a tale “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for the eARC. Receipt of the free ARC did not affect my opinion of this book.
Read
July 18, 2024O, full of scorpions is my mind.
To attempt to summarize my thoughts on this story is not unlike attempting to bottle a storm, leaving me no choice but to let the tempest rage on. Which is to say, I've wrote out my thoughts in a word document and they're 8 pages, single-spaced.
When I first read this book, I immediately foresaw it being unbelievably polarizing, and with the responses emerging since ARCs have gone out, I’m not surprised to see that prophecy fulfilled.
I'm a long time super fan of Ava Reid's work, as many of you know. But as many of you don't, I'm also a rising Shakespeare scholar with a specific interest in Macbeth and its depicted relationship between magic and the marginalized. So suffice to say: I was greatly anticipating this story, and I have a LOT of opinions on it.
Unfortunately, they do NOT fit in the Goodreads character limit, so I've made my review publicly available on my Patreon ! (I promise I would just put my review here if it would fit, but it won't.) If you want to read my thoughts on Lady Macbeth, including but not limited to: its relationship to Shakespearean scholarship and how it compares to Shrek, now you can! Enjoy!
CW: rape, domestic abuse, murder, blood & gore, sexual content, torture, violence, war, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, lobotomy (on-page), child death, ableism, misogyny, infidelity, animal sacrifice, dissociation, pregnancy, poison, alcohol, emesis
To attempt to summarize my thoughts on this story is not unlike attempting to bottle a storm, leaving me no choice but to let the tempest rage on. Which is to say, I've wrote out my thoughts in a word document and they're 8 pages, single-spaced.
When I first read this book, I immediately foresaw it being unbelievably polarizing, and with the responses emerging since ARCs have gone out, I’m not surprised to see that prophecy fulfilled.
I'm a long time super fan of Ava Reid's work, as many of you know. But as many of you don't, I'm also a rising Shakespeare scholar with a specific interest in Macbeth and its depicted relationship between magic and the marginalized. So suffice to say: I was greatly anticipating this story, and I have a LOT of opinions on it.
Unfortunately, they do NOT fit in the Goodreads character limit, so I've made my review publicly available on my Patreon ! (I promise I would just put my review here if it would fit, but it won't.) If you want to read my thoughts on Lady Macbeth, including but not limited to: its relationship to Shakespearean scholarship and how it compares to Shrek, now you can! Enjoy!
CW: rape, domestic abuse, murder, blood & gore, sexual content, torture, violence, war, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, lobotomy (on-page), child death, ableism, misogyny, infidelity, animal sacrifice, dissociation, pregnancy, poison, alcohol, emesis
July 15, 2024
As someone from Scotland and from a town within the region in which MacBeth takes place, i was incredibly excited to read this. Theres not an awful lot of books that are based in Scotland and in an area im very familiar with. I was so grateful to receive this as a physical arc from Del Rey in exchange for an honest review, and well im afraid im going to be very honest.
My excitement for this book ended around 3 pages in, and by page 14 i was unhappy to say the least. Putting aside the MASSIVE amount of xenophobia towards my people and my country, the absolute lack of ANY kind of research to the area and the languages was appalling. Ontop of the incorrect spellings of Glamis, Cawdor and Duncan (please note Ava Reid and editors, this is how they are spelt), there was so many geographical inaccuracies and linguistic nonsense that just shows the lack of care or respect to Scotland, the Scottish people and our history as a whole. A 10 second google will show you that Glamis castle is in fact not within hearing range of the sea and is not situated on a cliff.
The comment 'the land is no good for farming, not green enough for cattle'..... speechless.
'Reith, they call him, Scots for "red"' Reid, reid for red.
The book also seems to continually confuse Scots with Gaelic, interchanging the two but only referring to it as 'Scots' once again showing the lack of research or respect for the the country and its history.
Putting all this aside, the character of Lady MacBeth is so incredibly whiny and set on hating MacBeth and every man in the country, casting every word they say and every action no matter how nice or genuine as an act of arrogance or aggression...unless of course they happen to be of English blood then they are great and can do no wrong. Her character was also just so wasted, her plots all failed and were weak and despite having an ability to control mens minds, she used it for very little and could have fixed a lot of her problems had she used it. Her entire story was so dull and she seemed to have no real aim or goal and just existed.
The 'feministic' angle the character takes is far from forward thinking and instead seems set on men in general not being allowed to be anything other than a vicious monster, only to be made worse by being a brainless brute if they happen to be Scottish.
There is something deeply personal feeling about the clear distaste that Reid shows for us Scots through her descriptions of our people, as well as her lack of research and as a result lack of respect to the country and our culture.
Im not sure what we did to make her hate us this much but I can only hope that her writing is entirely fictional and all the inaccuracies were a massive oversight or artistic license and not as rooted in personal emotions and disdain as it comes across in this book.
Aside from all this, the prose was lovely.
My excitement for this book ended around 3 pages in, and by page 14 i was unhappy to say the least. Putting aside the MASSIVE amount of xenophobia towards my people and my country, the absolute lack of ANY kind of research to the area and the languages was appalling. Ontop of the incorrect spellings of Glamis, Cawdor and Duncan (please note Ava Reid and editors, this is how they are spelt), there was so many geographical inaccuracies and linguistic nonsense that just shows the lack of care or respect to Scotland, the Scottish people and our history as a whole. A 10 second google will show you that Glamis castle is in fact not within hearing range of the sea and is not situated on a cliff.
The comment 'the land is no good for farming, not green enough for cattle'..... speechless.
'Reith, they call him, Scots for "red"' Reid, reid for red.
The book also seems to continually confuse Scots with Gaelic, interchanging the two but only referring to it as 'Scots' once again showing the lack of research or respect for the the country and its history.
Putting all this aside, the character of Lady MacBeth is so incredibly whiny and set on hating MacBeth and every man in the country, casting every word they say and every action no matter how nice or genuine as an act of arrogance or aggression...unless of course they happen to be of English blood then they are great and can do no wrong. Her character was also just so wasted, her plots all failed and were weak and despite having an ability to control mens minds, she used it for very little and could have fixed a lot of her problems had she used it. Her entire story was so dull and she seemed to have no real aim or goal and just existed.
The 'feministic' angle the character takes is far from forward thinking and instead seems set on men in general not being allowed to be anything other than a vicious monster, only to be made worse by being a brainless brute if they happen to be Scottish.
There is something deeply personal feeling about the clear distaste that Reid shows for us Scots through her descriptions of our people, as well as her lack of research and as a result lack of respect to the country and our culture.
Im not sure what we did to make her hate us this much but I can only hope that her writing is entirely fictional and all the inaccuracies were a massive oversight or artistic license and not as rooted in personal emotions and disdain as it comes across in this book.
Aside from all this, the prose was lovely.
August 13, 2024
A witch does not need a reason, only an opportunity...
Most men do not need a reason, either. Only an opportunity.
ava reid's macbeth retelling is dark, gothic, haunting, and even more brutal than its source material. while the scottish play examines lady macbeth in tandem with her husband, taking on (what was then seen as) masculine traits so they may succeed, this lady macbeth leans in to her strategy, her careful tactician in hopes of staying ahead of her husband.
"And now you are the dagger in my hand."
this marriage does not resemble shakespeare's couple who are typically revered as the most loving couple of all his work. lady roscille is sent to a wed a violent warrior as a peace offering for allegiance.
To cause lustful madness is one thing - any beautiful woman has that power, if she wishes to exercise it, even if she doesn't, even if such a thing can be called power. To mold a man to her will is another.
Madness, of all things, is the most unforgivable in a woman.
ava reid examines a woman's role in these harsh times; their duties, their roles as pawns, their powerlessness, their sufferings. this was an excellent addition to the evolution of witches in storytelling from cautionary tales & embodiments of sexism to icons of feminism and women's reclamation of strength.
Vengeance is not a wooden cup that empties. It is a jeweled chalice which endlessly spills over.
i appreciated her choice in the juggling of languages; she chose to be more true to the time period, where language was more fluid and constantly changing in domination. her vivid imagery and details truly set me right there in that damp, cold castle with piercing, briny winds. She calls in the symbolism of the iconic bloody hands as well as her own new ones: the unicorn, the eels, the necklace, the snake.
"I prefer a monster that shows itself openly."
(fyi, you don't *need* to read macbeth before this, but i reread it recently in prep for this arc and it was cool to have a clearer understanding of the delineations reid made and the similarities ! if you prefer to go in a bit more blind plot-wise though, you could easily skip it!)
TW/CW under spoiler:
thank you to del rey for my arc, this is an honest review <3
______________________________
EEE I GOT THE ARC!!
i just know this is gonna call all my fellow former theatre kid readers out to light
Most men do not need a reason, either. Only an opportunity.
ava reid's macbeth retelling is dark, gothic, haunting, and even more brutal than its source material. while the scottish play examines lady macbeth in tandem with her husband, taking on (what was then seen as) masculine traits so they may succeed, this lady macbeth leans in to her strategy, her careful tactician in hopes of staying ahead of her husband.
"And now you are the dagger in my hand."
this marriage does not resemble shakespeare's couple who are typically revered as the most loving couple of all his work. lady roscille is sent to a wed a violent warrior as a peace offering for allegiance.
To cause lustful madness is one thing - any beautiful woman has that power, if she wishes to exercise it, even if she doesn't, even if such a thing can be called power. To mold a man to her will is another.
Madness, of all things, is the most unforgivable in a woman.
ava reid examines a woman's role in these harsh times; their duties, their roles as pawns, their powerlessness, their sufferings. this was an excellent addition to the evolution of witches in storytelling from cautionary tales & embodiments of sexism to icons of feminism and women's reclamation of strength.
Vengeance is not a wooden cup that empties. It is a jeweled chalice which endlessly spills over.
i appreciated her choice in the juggling of languages; she chose to be more true to the time period, where language was more fluid and constantly changing in domination. her vivid imagery and details truly set me right there in that damp, cold castle with piercing, briny winds. She calls in the symbolism of the iconic bloody hands as well as her own new ones: the unicorn, the eels, the necklace, the snake.
"I prefer a monster that shows itself openly."
(fyi, you don't *need* to read macbeth before this, but i reread it recently in prep for this arc and it was cool to have a clearer understanding of the delineations reid made and the similarities ! if you prefer to go in a bit more blind plot-wise though, you could easily skip it!)
TW/CW under spoiler:
thank you to del rey for my arc, this is an honest review <3
______________________________
EEE I GOT THE ARC!!
i just know this is gonna call all my fellow former theatre kid readers out to light
September 17, 2024
˖ ࣪ ⟡˚ 1 star ˚⟡ ࣪ ˖
this was not ‘Macbeth’ from Lady Macbeth’s POV.
this was a Macbeth AU fanfiction.
going into this, i (like most people) thought this would be a retelling of Shakespeare’s play ‘Macbeth’ from Lady Macbeth’s point of view, but unfortunately, it was not.
ᝰ characters ⊹.˚
⭒ Lady Macbeth, this version is nothing like the original. here she is a winy, silly, and weak 17-year-old French woman, who we’re constantly told is witty and clever, yet there’s never any evidence of it. where was the ambitious, vicious, and bloodthirsty Lady Macbeth we all know and love??
⭒ Macbeth, went from a tragic, ambitious, and multi-layered character to an evil brute who does nothing but abuse the FMC. on top of that, all of the Scottish characters in this book are characterized as dirty, uncivilized violent idiots. the xenophobia was insane.
also, was this actually supposed to be a feminist retelling? because as i see it, it was not. apart from Lady Macbeth, there were basically no other female characters. and when we saw them, they were described as manly and ugly.
but my main problem was the fact that in order for this to be called a “feminist’ retelling, the FMC had to be abused, terrorized, and helpless against the terrible, violent MMC. it didn’t read feminist to me at all.
this was not ‘Macbeth’ from Lady Macbeth’s POV.
this was a Macbeth AU fanfiction.
going into this, i (like most people) thought this would be a retelling of Shakespeare’s play ‘Macbeth’ from Lady Macbeth’s point of view, but unfortunately, it was not.
ᝰ characters ⊹.˚
⭒ Lady Macbeth, this version is nothing like the original. here she is a winy, silly, and weak 17-year-old French woman, who we’re constantly told is witty and clever, yet there’s never any evidence of it. where was the ambitious, vicious, and bloodthirsty Lady Macbeth we all know and love??
⭒ Macbeth, went from a tragic, ambitious, and multi-layered character to an evil brute who does nothing but abuse the FMC. on top of that, all of the Scottish characters in this book are characterized as dirty, uncivilized violent idiots. the xenophobia was insane.
also, was this actually supposed to be a feminist retelling? because as i see it, it was not. apart from Lady Macbeth, there were basically no other female characters. and when we saw them, they were described as manly and ugly.
but my main problem was the fact that in order for this to be called a “feminist’ retelling, the FMC had to be abused, terrorized, and helpless against the terrible, violent MMC. it didn’t read feminist to me at all.
August 12, 2024
Niektórzy nie czują, ja czuję wszystkim 🤌🏻
June 19, 2024
All hail Lady Macbeth.
I've been begging for a book centered around Lady Macbeth, ever since I first read Macbeth in high school. She is one of the most enigmatic characters I've encountered, so I was over the moon when Ava Reid announced this novel. And they did not disappoint.
Lady Macbeth is an atmospheric, dreary, suffocating read that makes you, the reader, feel trapped within its circumstances. Full of lush prose and a growing resentment that rises and rises with each passing page, I fell in love with Reid's rendition of Lady Macbeth. This story remains faithful to her cunning personality and ability to toy with those around her but also humanizes her and explores the suffering women face at the hands of men. She is given a voice, a personality, a true character arc, and I was enthralled by this retelling.
While the last two parts docked off a star for me because it felt rushed, easily wrapped up, and weaker than its previous beats, this novel was gorgeous, incredibly dark in its descriptions, exciting, and everything I could have hoped for from a Lady Macbeth retelling.
I've been begging for a book centered around Lady Macbeth, ever since I first read Macbeth in high school. She is one of the most enigmatic characters I've encountered, so I was over the moon when Ava Reid announced this novel. And they did not disappoint.
Lady Macbeth is an atmospheric, dreary, suffocating read that makes you, the reader, feel trapped within its circumstances. Full of lush prose and a growing resentment that rises and rises with each passing page, I fell in love with Reid's rendition of Lady Macbeth. This story remains faithful to her cunning personality and ability to toy with those around her but also humanizes her and explores the suffering women face at the hands of men. She is given a voice, a personality, a true character arc, and I was enthralled by this retelling.
While the last two parts docked off a star for me because it felt rushed, easily wrapped up, and weaker than its previous beats, this novel was gorgeous, incredibly dark in its descriptions, exciting, and everything I could have hoped for from a Lady Macbeth retelling.
September 28, 2024
**3.5-stars**
To round up, or to not round up? That is the question.
The first thing that sticks out in my mind about this book is that it took me 20-days to read, which it shouldn't have. It's fairly short, but every single time I picked it up, I would fall asleep after like 10-pages.
Reid's writing is beautiful, but it failed to ever truly grip me. I was hoping for a more sinister plot, and a more overtly cunning representation of Lady Macbeth as well.
However, I did enjoy the level of inspiration from the original story, and felt the setting and atmosphere were very well done. I felt the cold and dark in my bones.
I'm getting a little ahead of myself though, so let's start at the beginning. As you would expect, Lady Macbeth is Ava Reid's reimagining of one of the best villains, IMHO, of all time, Lady Macbeth. We love her.
Lady Macbeth, as a character, has always fascinated me and I do tend to enjoy new fiction that reimagines her role, or persona. One of my favorites, for example, would be Foul Is Fair, which is indeed very modern, while this story is true to the original in time.
In fact, the setting and characters all feel fairly true to the original source material, and I think any fan of that work could enjoy checking this one out.
I did enjoying following Roscille, who becomes Lady Macbeth, as she first arrives at Macbeth's castle and meets her husband-to-be for the first time, as well as her introduction to other inhabitants of the castle and their ways, which are all very mysterious to her.
I also did feel Roscille was cunning and smart. That she was strategizing all along the best ways to get by in her new life.
With this being said though, I was disappointed not to get more development in her relationship with her husband. I felt that was very surface level and I would have wanted much more to feel satisfied.
By this I don't mean romantically. I wanted more strategizing between them, and honestly, I wanted to see more manipulation on her part. I know it was there, but it just felt weak compared to what I was hoping for.
I wanted her to be using Macbeth's alleged brutish nature more to her advantage. It felt more like the reverse, that he was still in control. I know that's not exactly true, especially by the end, but I wanted her power to be more unconcealed.
Personally, it felt too subtle for me. It was like those punching points I wanted were a bit bogged down by the beauty of the writing. Although there's nothing wrong with pretty writing, it just wasn't quite to my tastes.
The first half of the book was definitely more successful for me. At that point, there was still hope and the possibility that Lady Macbeth would live up to her full, sinister potential. Unfortunately, that just never really followed through to the extent that I wanted.
With this being said, I did still enjoy this. It is a good story and I'm so happy to have tried Ava Reid's work for the very first time. I would be interested in reading more from Reid.
I would also recommend this to anyone who is interested in the character of Lady Macbeth. I think there are some great scenes in this that lots are Readers will enjoy. It's also atmospheric and easy to follow: plus, plus.
Thank you to the publisher, Del Rey, for providing me for a copy to read and review.
While I wanted a bit more blatancy to Roscille's cunning and strategy, I still appreciate this for what it is and feel like the author did a great job reinterpreting this classic tale!
To round up, or to not round up? That is the question.
The first thing that sticks out in my mind about this book is that it took me 20-days to read, which it shouldn't have. It's fairly short, but every single time I picked it up, I would fall asleep after like 10-pages.
Reid's writing is beautiful, but it failed to ever truly grip me. I was hoping for a more sinister plot, and a more overtly cunning representation of Lady Macbeth as well.
However, I did enjoy the level of inspiration from the original story, and felt the setting and atmosphere were very well done. I felt the cold and dark in my bones.
I'm getting a little ahead of myself though, so let's start at the beginning. As you would expect, Lady Macbeth is Ava Reid's reimagining of one of the best villains, IMHO, of all time, Lady Macbeth. We love her.
Lady Macbeth, as a character, has always fascinated me and I do tend to enjoy new fiction that reimagines her role, or persona. One of my favorites, for example, would be Foul Is Fair, which is indeed very modern, while this story is true to the original in time.
In fact, the setting and characters all feel fairly true to the original source material, and I think any fan of that work could enjoy checking this one out.
I did enjoying following Roscille, who becomes Lady Macbeth, as she first arrives at Macbeth's castle and meets her husband-to-be for the first time, as well as her introduction to other inhabitants of the castle and their ways, which are all very mysterious to her.
I also did feel Roscille was cunning and smart. That she was strategizing all along the best ways to get by in her new life.
With this being said though, I was disappointed not to get more development in her relationship with her husband. I felt that was very surface level and I would have wanted much more to feel satisfied.
By this I don't mean romantically. I wanted more strategizing between them, and honestly, I wanted to see more manipulation on her part. I know it was there, but it just felt weak compared to what I was hoping for.
I wanted her to be using Macbeth's alleged brutish nature more to her advantage. It felt more like the reverse, that he was still in control. I know that's not exactly true, especially by the end, but I wanted her power to be more unconcealed.
Personally, it felt too subtle for me. It was like those punching points I wanted were a bit bogged down by the beauty of the writing. Although there's nothing wrong with pretty writing, it just wasn't quite to my tastes.
The first half of the book was definitely more successful for me. At that point, there was still hope and the possibility that Lady Macbeth would live up to her full, sinister potential. Unfortunately, that just never really followed through to the extent that I wanted.
With this being said, I did still enjoy this. It is a good story and I'm so happy to have tried Ava Reid's work for the very first time. I would be interested in reading more from Reid.
I would also recommend this to anyone who is interested in the character of Lady Macbeth. I think there are some great scenes in this that lots are Readers will enjoy. It's also atmospheric and easy to follow: plus, plus.
Thank you to the publisher, Del Rey, for providing me for a copy to read and review.
While I wanted a bit more blatancy to Roscille's cunning and strategy, I still appreciate this for what it is and feel like the author did a great job reinterpreting this classic tale!
August 29, 2024
Macbeth is a tragedy, so it seems only fair to me that this was tragic as well. Not even the prettiest writing in the world could save such a (lack of) plot. Half of this (mess) was incredibly boring, the other half made me feel so miserable, this was literally the most miserable portrait of womanhood you could ever find in todays literature. She was weak and men were strong, and it went like this, on and on, for pages and pages and pages.
January 16, 2024
2.5. a work of vaulting—or at least pirouetting—ambition from a not particularly interesting creative mind. (this comps to hilary mantel, which is a very funny case of hydrogen bomb/coughing baby.) however, i am rounding up because we need more ambition in the industry and in fact LESS fidelity in retellings. this got really, really Ambitious Modern Theater Production (Derogaffectionate) towards the end and did it work? here and there, but even its failures set it apart from its peers in madeline miller's school for reclaiming wayward antiheroines, and i'd always rather read a weird mess than a rote copy.
the prose here is ultraviolet and i ran it around on my tongue for a while until i figured why it tasted familiar, which is that it IS fanfictiony, but special occasion fanfictiony. it's not ao3 house style, thank god. but it is, for those in the know, very yuletide. within that it embarked on some projects that i enjoyed: i liked the shifting language/names/etymology as a way of showing narrative shift and accents of place, ALTHOUGH i do think it is undercut by an absolute wild amount of unironic white on white racism regarding the ~barbarous scots. it is honestly very funny to hit your readers with "don't you long for the civilizing ways of the french" with zero internal narrative questioning in the twenty-first century.
but that distaste for the landscape of the play speaks to something larger, which... look. there are no wrong ways to interpret a text, or at least no angles that can't be sold through a dynamic production. the exhilarating pleasure of classic texts and classic plays and especially shakespeare is that they demand new interpretation every time you pick them up. but there ARE bad productions and uninteresting choices, and i do think one of the worst things you can do when coming to an interpretation is be uninterested in the source text. i am simply baffled as to why this was a macbeth retelling and not simply a melusine or a regular bluebeard. i love melusine! the story loves the myth of melusine and the lais of breton! it doesn't really like macbeth the play! it abhors macbeth the man! it doesn't like scotland, as mentioned, and as such is not interested in the natural world or environment of scotland; it is not enormously interested in prophecy as a narrative mechanic, and skips through the script of those scenes like it's looking at its watch. there are places where it breaks the source text and history interestingly (what it does with 'gruoch' is great) but it has no interest/seeming distaste for most of the core elements of the play and doesn't even really enjoy its time with the text. i can come up with no real argument for Why (Lady) Macbeth other than "that is a more recognizable story than the ones i really like and therefore a better sales hook", which is disappointingly cynical to consider.
i do not have an enormous emotional investment in macbeth the character and my interest in the all-time-famous evil marriage is generally what a production or depiction puts into it. however, the bones of the material are: averagely evil culturally regular man perpetuates rising, high tragic levels of evil and bloodshed because he is seduced into it by prophecy-speaking witches and his ambitious wife. i don't really think it's a feminist play any more than i think mastercard is my friend, but i think it is an odd call to write a reclamation where macbeth is a superevil superhulk ultramasculine killing and raping machine and every woman is in absolute trembling subjugation to him. i don't think it's enormously challenging to the social order to say WHAT IF the great scheming villainess famous for giving her husband orders was a sheltered nubile teen who wishes she could just date another teen. i mean famously i can name another shakespearean play for that.
in terms of motivating factors for this perspective: reid is on the record as having a passionate investment in the stories of sexual assault survivors, which is wonderful; and every school-of-circe retelling is forced to inherit the assumption that any historico-mythic villainness is Bad because she has been sexually assaulted, which is not. in terms of sensitivity to the material we land somewhere in the middle. if you come in at face value and want a story about a lethally beautiful (canonically slender yet canonically busty, women can have it all!) demoiselle française whose beauty can't save her from the brutality of the patriarchy, but maybe a sexy dragon CAN, it works more or less fine—but at the end of the day what does any of that have to do with the price of trees in dunsinane?
the prose here is ultraviolet and i ran it around on my tongue for a while until i figured why it tasted familiar, which is that it IS fanfictiony, but special occasion fanfictiony. it's not ao3 house style, thank god. but it is, for those in the know, very yuletide. within that it embarked on some projects that i enjoyed: i liked the shifting language/names/etymology as a way of showing narrative shift and accents of place, ALTHOUGH i do think it is undercut by an absolute wild amount of unironic white on white racism regarding the ~barbarous scots. it is honestly very funny to hit your readers with "don't you long for the civilizing ways of the french" with zero internal narrative questioning in the twenty-first century.
but that distaste for the landscape of the play speaks to something larger, which... look. there are no wrong ways to interpret a text, or at least no angles that can't be sold through a dynamic production. the exhilarating pleasure of classic texts and classic plays and especially shakespeare is that they demand new interpretation every time you pick them up. but there ARE bad productions and uninteresting choices, and i do think one of the worst things you can do when coming to an interpretation is be uninterested in the source text. i am simply baffled as to why this was a macbeth retelling and not simply a melusine or a regular bluebeard. i love melusine! the story loves the myth of melusine and the lais of breton! it doesn't really like macbeth the play! it abhors macbeth the man! it doesn't like scotland, as mentioned, and as such is not interested in the natural world or environment of scotland; it is not enormously interested in prophecy as a narrative mechanic, and skips through the script of those scenes like it's looking at its watch. there are places where it breaks the source text and history interestingly (what it does with 'gruoch' is great) but it has no interest/seeming distaste for most of the core elements of the play and doesn't even really enjoy its time with the text. i can come up with no real argument for Why (Lady) Macbeth other than "that is a more recognizable story than the ones i really like and therefore a better sales hook", which is disappointingly cynical to consider.
i do not have an enormous emotional investment in macbeth the character and my interest in the all-time-famous evil marriage is generally what a production or depiction puts into it. however, the bones of the material are: averagely evil culturally regular man perpetuates rising, high tragic levels of evil and bloodshed because he is seduced into it by prophecy-speaking witches and his ambitious wife. i don't really think it's a feminist play any more than i think mastercard is my friend, but i think it is an odd call to write a reclamation where macbeth is a superevil superhulk ultramasculine killing and raping machine and every woman is in absolute trembling subjugation to him. i don't think it's enormously challenging to the social order to say WHAT IF the great scheming villainess famous for giving her husband orders was a sheltered nubile teen who wishes she could just date another teen. i mean famously i can name another shakespearean play for that.
in terms of motivating factors for this perspective: reid is on the record as having a passionate investment in the stories of sexual assault survivors, which is wonderful; and every school-of-circe retelling is forced to inherit the assumption that any historico-mythic villainness is Bad because she has been sexually assaulted, which is not. in terms of sensitivity to the material we land somewhere in the middle. if you come in at face value and want a story about a lethally beautiful (canonically slender yet canonically busty, women can have it all!) demoiselle française whose beauty can't save her from the brutality of the patriarchy, but maybe a sexy dragon CAN, it works more or less fine—but at the end of the day what does any of that have to do with the price of trees in dunsinane?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 27, 2024
Uh, what was this?
I know Roscille is being made to seem like some perfect, pretty polyglot, but she comes off as dumb, gullible, and pretentious. But don't worry. She's not like the other girls.
The witchcraft could've been cool. It's not. We're stuck with veiled Roscille, who has magic eyes that make a man do anything. Except some men. They're immune.
We touched on Melusina, that mermaid myth I greatly enjoyed in the House of Plantagenet, but then it went nowhere. Seriously. It's never mentioned again.
If I see the words "King," or "Queen Hereafter," ever again, I will riot.
Again, after my Del Rey backlog is done, I'm out.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey
I know Roscille is being made to seem like some perfect, pretty polyglot, but she comes off as dumb, gullible, and pretentious. But don't worry. She's not like the other girls.
The witchcraft could've been cool. It's not. We're stuck with veiled Roscille, who has magic eyes that make a man do anything. Except some men. They're immune.
We touched on Melusina, that mermaid myth I greatly enjoyed in the House of Plantagenet, but then it went nowhere. Seriously. It's never mentioned again.
If I see the words "King," or "Queen Hereafter," ever again, I will riot.
Again, after my Del Rey backlog is done, I'm out.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey
September 10, 2024
Reads like the author is self-absorbed with their own writing to the detriment of literally everything else.
Also I don't think I've ever seen a hickey written so poetically, so uhhhh, there's that.
Also I don't think I've ever seen a hickey written so poetically, so uhhhh, there's that.
His mouth will leave marks. She has seen them on a hundred serving girls before. A cluster of bruises purple with red pricking through them, as blood rises to the surface, but does not spill.
Read
February 23, 2024Made it almost 60% but I can't do this. I am DNFING this. I don't like this at all. This is a 2 star read and that's me being generous.
September 15, 2024
so in other words it's a lady macbeth fanfiction
August 15, 2024
Edit to add: Regardless of inspiration, a piece of fiction needs to stand on its own as a successful piece of storytelling. That did not happen here. The hammering home of themes with all the delicacy a sledgehammer can muster, the dry prose, the lumping of all of the Scots into brutes, and the constant telegraphing that misogyny is bad, little to no character development, a plot that truly did not make sense or contribute to the characters arc, all contribute to this not being a successful story at all.
First thing you should know about me, Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play, and I'm deeply familiar with it and the themes and history of the time.
Second, while I can always appreciate another lens shined on Shakespeare's work, I also NEED it to be saying something interesting that was not already in the original work.
So character changes, plot details, and modern-day influences can all be interesting. IF they are doing something different and unique with the already established work that modern readers can relate to.
None of that happened here.
I could not see any merit in changing Lady Macbeth's character so drastically that all of her scheming, understanding, and boundaries placed upon her during the time she lived was erased and replaced with a pretty teenager from France who lacked any and all nuance and subtlety.
I also had issues with the writing, which I had previously enjoyed from this author in A Study In Drowning. This felt so dry and stripped of all beauty to me. GREAT prose, in my opinion, should always be more than beautiful words. It should show us things about the characters and the world. It should illuminate things we already think and feel in our souls and put those to words we can not. And this had none of that. It is also repetitive in description lacking in rhythm.
Again, let me emphasize how much subtlety this entire book lacked. Every metaphor and every implication that misogyny is bad and women have no agency (something that was NOT shouted at us in the original Macbeth) and the Scots are nothing but brutes was obvious to the point of near literally spelling it out to us.
I wasn't expecting this to be an exact retelling at all. But I was hoping for it to have some of the same feeling, and certainly, I was expecting it to not be so lacking in feeling and depth.
I'm so disappointed.
I received an ARC for review
First thing you should know about me, Macbeth is my favorite Shakespeare play, and I'm deeply familiar with it and the themes and history of the time.
Second, while I can always appreciate another lens shined on Shakespeare's work, I also NEED it to be saying something interesting that was not already in the original work.
So character changes, plot details, and modern-day influences can all be interesting. IF they are doing something different and unique with the already established work that modern readers can relate to.
None of that happened here.
I could not see any merit in changing Lady Macbeth's character so drastically that all of her scheming, understanding, and boundaries placed upon her during the time she lived was erased and replaced with a pretty teenager from France who lacked any and all nuance and subtlety.
I also had issues with the writing, which I had previously enjoyed from this author in A Study In Drowning. This felt so dry and stripped of all beauty to me. GREAT prose, in my opinion, should always be more than beautiful words. It should show us things about the characters and the world. It should illuminate things we already think and feel in our souls and put those to words we can not. And this had none of that. It is also repetitive in description lacking in rhythm.
Again, let me emphasize how much subtlety this entire book lacked. Every metaphor and every implication that misogyny is bad and women have no agency (something that was NOT shouted at us in the original Macbeth) and the Scots are nothing but brutes was obvious to the point of near literally spelling it out to us.
I wasn't expecting this to be an exact retelling at all. But I was hoping for it to have some of the same feeling, and certainly, I was expecting it to not be so lacking in feeling and depth.
I'm so disappointed.
I received an ARC for review
January 28, 2024
OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDD
(Thank you to the publisher for the arc)
5 stars | There is so much to say about this book, and let me tell you, I have just as much anxiety about saying something I'm not supposed to. This is my first arc, and when I tell you I'm genuinely worried that Netgalley is gonna get the FBI to show up at my door if I let anything slip-
But it would be so hard not to! This is a fantastic book, so let's get into it.
The Characters:
Our main character, Lady Macbeth, is sent to Scotland by her father to marry Lord Macbeth, who's something like 39 to her 17 years. Known for her madness-inciting stare, the Lady is a keen observer who uses her unique perspective to give herself power.
I cannot articulate how Reid's writing, especially regarding the creation of our protagonist, makes me feel. First off, I am an avid believer in Ava Reid supremacy, and if you read this book, you will too! Roscilla (Lady Macbeth) is such an interesting character. if you've read any of Reid's other books, you know that her female protagonists are absolutely unhinged, and you know what? They have a right to be. I think we've fallen into a really unfortunate trend where authors give their characters a tragic backstory/history of abuse simply so that they can appeal to a certain demographic while marketing their books. On the other hand, Reid's depiction of abuse and perseverance is genuine in just about everything, and I feel like that needs to be appreciated more.
The Writing
Everyone needs to read an Ava Reid book in their lifetime. I saw a one star review of this (which is wild, to say the least) where one of the main points of their criticism is that Reid can't write. I try not to judge other people's opinions and tastes because I realize that not everyone likes the same thing. But to say Ava Reid is a bad writer is the equivalent of saying the earth is flat; it's false, there's literally so much evidence against it, and to go on believing this is a sign of ignorance. Their voice is one of the most distinct, and beautiful, in the industry right now. If we ever reach a point where all authors write like Ava Reid, it'll be a sign that we have entered a utopian society.
The Message
I cannot say this enough: we need more writers like Ava Reid. Everyone gets to read their own stuff, cause that's no one's business but their own, but the publishing industry needs to stop pushing toxic relationships in their media. In this book, Macbeth is nearly fourty. Roscilla is 17. He is controlling and possessive, and views his wife as a tool and his property. Not ONCE is this romanticized. The fear that Roscilla experiences, especially around having to consummate their marriage and the uneven power dynamic, is real and it is palpable. Marriages where teenage girls are sold off in order to gain an alliance are not romantic. Please let that sink in. Huge props to Reid for acknowledging that and not falling into the trap of looking at a predatory relationship and calling it romance. Some authors really need to realize the harm that they do when they ignore this. Age gaps where one person is a teenager and the other is middle aged ARE NOT SEXY
Overall thoughts
I'm pretty sure the majority of this review is me talking about how much I love Ava Reid, and I'm ok with that. Once this gets published, I'll be sure to put up some highlights and quotes, but until then, get ready! I loved this book so much and I can't wait to see everyone else talk about it 💖 In the mean time, go preorder and add it! It's important that we continue to support authors. Have a great next read 💋
🎀
Pre-read:
My first ever arc! I'm so excited especially since Ava Reid is such an amazing author 💖
(Thank you to the publisher for the arc)
5 stars | There is so much to say about this book, and let me tell you, I have just as much anxiety about saying something I'm not supposed to. This is my first arc, and when I tell you I'm genuinely worried that Netgalley is gonna get the FBI to show up at my door if I let anything slip-
But it would be so hard not to! This is a fantastic book, so let's get into it.
The Characters:
Our main character, Lady Macbeth, is sent to Scotland by her father to marry Lord Macbeth, who's something like 39 to her 17 years. Known for her madness-inciting stare, the Lady is a keen observer who uses her unique perspective to give herself power.
I cannot articulate how Reid's writing, especially regarding the creation of our protagonist, makes me feel. First off, I am an avid believer in Ava Reid supremacy, and if you read this book, you will too! Roscilla (Lady Macbeth) is such an interesting character. if you've read any of Reid's other books, you know that her female protagonists are absolutely unhinged, and you know what? They have a right to be. I think we've fallen into a really unfortunate trend where authors give their characters a tragic backstory/history of abuse simply so that they can appeal to a certain demographic while marketing their books. On the other hand, Reid's depiction of abuse and perseverance is genuine in just about everything, and I feel like that needs to be appreciated more.
The Writing
Everyone needs to read an Ava Reid book in their lifetime. I saw a one star review of this (which is wild, to say the least) where one of the main points of their criticism is that Reid can't write. I try not to judge other people's opinions and tastes because I realize that not everyone likes the same thing. But to say Ava Reid is a bad writer is the equivalent of saying the earth is flat; it's false, there's literally so much evidence against it, and to go on believing this is a sign of ignorance. Their voice is one of the most distinct, and beautiful, in the industry right now. If we ever reach a point where all authors write like Ava Reid, it'll be a sign that we have entered a utopian society.
The Message
I cannot say this enough: we need more writers like Ava Reid. Everyone gets to read their own stuff, cause that's no one's business but their own, but the publishing industry needs to stop pushing toxic relationships in their media. In this book, Macbeth is nearly fourty. Roscilla is 17. He is controlling and possessive, and views his wife as a tool and his property. Not ONCE is this romanticized. The fear that Roscilla experiences, especially around having to consummate their marriage and the uneven power dynamic, is real and it is palpable. Marriages where teenage girls are sold off in order to gain an alliance are not romantic. Please let that sink in. Huge props to Reid for acknowledging that and not falling into the trap of looking at a predatory relationship and calling it romance. Some authors really need to realize the harm that they do when they ignore this. Age gaps where one person is a teenager and the other is middle aged ARE NOT SEXY
Overall thoughts
I'm pretty sure the majority of this review is me talking about how much I love Ava Reid, and I'm ok with that. Once this gets published, I'll be sure to put up some highlights and quotes, but until then, get ready! I loved this book so much and I can't wait to see everyone else talk about it 💖 In the mean time, go preorder and add it! It's important that we continue to support authors. Have a great next read 💋
🎀
Pre-read:
My first ever arc! I'm so excited especially since Ava Reid is such an amazing author 💖
August 26, 2024
DNF-ed.
Count me in whenever there's a Shakespeare reimagining.
Count me in whenever there's a Shakespeare reimagining.
February 27, 2024
it's giving Xenophobia and De-Yassification of one of the most Gaslight Gatekeep Girlbosses ever.
September 1, 2024
@rosiesveil just tweeted:
''guys does anyone know if maids are usually sent home like after the bachelor or if they’re thrown to sea???’’
‘’me and my new bestie just lied to my husband together, I feel our bond getting stronger :)’’
’’anyone can recommend a concealer that ACTUALLY covers hickeys? Asking for a friend’’
’’ can’t believe I keep crossing myself in front of the witches, so embarrassing, they must think me stupid!’’
’’when it’s 3am and you want something tasty but you remember the only snack left in your room is your dead bear, haha, I’ve named him Macmuffin’’
’’ how do you call 911 with smoke signals?’’
‘’also do smoke signals work in this humidity?’’
#helpless ! Do not have sex outside!
new bestie to replace my old bestie! She’s kind of a slut, god, wish that was me
“ She must not lack in beauty. She must keep her mind whetted like a blade. And she must always be safe around sharp objects. Madness, of all things, is the most unforgivable in a woman.”
February 18, 2024
pre-reading the book
i really hope that this book keeps lady macbeth as someone who is genuinely power-hungry and doesn't make her all innocent and waify because that is what I am afraid will be done to "redeem" her character. Giving her a power that she cannot control that is "stronger than everyone else's'" but it's only stronger because she's been through such horrible things or something like that. Like villainesses are a lot more interesting to read about that characters who are just painted in a bad light but have no real personality and after reading the synopsis and a study in drowning that may be happening.
do not massacre my girl lady macbeth. she should be the one doing the massacring
post-read
I think this book is going to take the very difficult to achieve prize of the worst Shakespeare retelling that I have ever read. I wasn’t a huge fan of Reid’s previous book, A Study In Drowning, but I did like her writing style and prose, and I absolutely adore Shakespeare and find Lady Macbeth to be a fascinating character, so I had to give this book a try when I saw it on NetGalley. That was probably a mistake. This review is going to effectively be a list of grievances, because I do not think that there was really anything redeeming about this book to me personally.
To start with, Lady Macbeth herself is a scheming, evil, ambitious, middle-aged, Scottish woman of unknown or unimportant physical beauty, who convinces her husband to kill the king so she can be the queen of Scotland. This is what makes her a really interesting character, but Roscille, the name given to Lady Macbeth in this novel, is not a single one of these things apart from being a woman (and word for word from the book, she is not quite a woman). Roscille is a French teenage girl who is described to be physically on par with the y/n fanfiction characters of the 2010s, from the figure that is like a childs if it weren’t for the overly large breasts (only mildly paraphrased to make it shorter– this got at least a good three paragraphs in the book), to the hair so blonde it’s practically white, to the unnatural and extremely compelling eye color (that is literally just really dark brown. She has no ambition of her own to be anything, and is the one forced to kill King Duncan (Duncane in the book), at Macbeth’s urging, although she does not even kill him, because the super strong powers that she has that make her stronger than men is literally just the power to control men. The feminism in this retelling is intensely surface-level in every way possible, which brings me to my next complaint. Instead of addressing the sexism that was in the actual play itself, this novel decided to make the sexism worse to make Roscille’s inevitable breaking out of it appear like it was more freeing, when it really didn’t do much at all. There was not much historical research that was done, as far as I can tell, and for some reason the author believed that it was possible to run an entire castle without any women at all, because the Scots were so backwards and sexist that they shunned all women entirely. On that line, this is the second book in a row that Ava Reid has written where the main character has rampant unaddressed extreme xenophobia against Scottish people specifically. Like what did the Scots ever do to you and why are you writing about Macbeth if you think that all Scottish people are ugly brutes who can do nothing besides murder and attack one another? Even the love interest, who is not Macbeth, is the only male character that we meet within the narrative who is not Scottish (he is English, which I would say is worse), and he’s the only pretty man, and can turn into a Welsh dragon, and he has negative chemistry with Roscille and the personality of a wet cardboard box. And I think those are most of my major grievances, so to prevent any further rambling, I will stop this review here.
i really hope that this book keeps lady macbeth as someone who is genuinely power-hungry and doesn't make her all innocent and waify because that is what I am afraid will be done to "redeem" her character. Giving her a power that she cannot control that is "stronger than everyone else's'" but it's only stronger because she's been through such horrible things or something like that. Like villainesses are a lot more interesting to read about that characters who are just painted in a bad light but have no real personality and after reading the synopsis and a study in drowning that may be happening.
do not massacre my girl lady macbeth. she should be the one doing the massacring
post-read
I think this book is going to take the very difficult to achieve prize of the worst Shakespeare retelling that I have ever read. I wasn’t a huge fan of Reid’s previous book, A Study In Drowning, but I did like her writing style and prose, and I absolutely adore Shakespeare and find Lady Macbeth to be a fascinating character, so I had to give this book a try when I saw it on NetGalley. That was probably a mistake. This review is going to effectively be a list of grievances, because I do not think that there was really anything redeeming about this book to me personally.
To start with, Lady Macbeth herself is a scheming, evil, ambitious, middle-aged, Scottish woman of unknown or unimportant physical beauty, who convinces her husband to kill the king so she can be the queen of Scotland. This is what makes her a really interesting character, but Roscille, the name given to Lady Macbeth in this novel, is not a single one of these things apart from being a woman (and word for word from the book, she is not quite a woman). Roscille is a French teenage girl who is described to be physically on par with the y/n fanfiction characters of the 2010s, from the figure that is like a childs if it weren’t for the overly large breasts (only mildly paraphrased to make it shorter– this got at least a good three paragraphs in the book), to the hair so blonde it’s practically white, to the unnatural and extremely compelling eye color (that is literally just really dark brown. She has no ambition of her own to be anything, and is the one forced to kill King Duncan (Duncane in the book), at Macbeth’s urging, although she does not even kill him, because the super strong powers that she has that make her stronger than men is literally just the power to control men. The feminism in this retelling is intensely surface-level in every way possible, which brings me to my next complaint. Instead of addressing the sexism that was in the actual play itself, this novel decided to make the sexism worse to make Roscille’s inevitable breaking out of it appear like it was more freeing, when it really didn’t do much at all. There was not much historical research that was done, as far as I can tell, and for some reason the author believed that it was possible to run an entire castle without any women at all, because the Scots were so backwards and sexist that they shunned all women entirely. On that line, this is the second book in a row that Ava Reid has written where the main character has rampant unaddressed extreme xenophobia against Scottish people specifically. Like what did the Scots ever do to you and why are you writing about Macbeth if you think that all Scottish people are ugly brutes who can do nothing besides murder and attack one another? Even the love interest, who is not Macbeth, is the only male character that we meet within the narrative who is not Scottish (he is English, which I would say is worse), and he’s the only pretty man, and can turn into a Welsh dragon, and he has negative chemistry with Roscille and the personality of a wet cardboard box. And I think those are most of my major grievances, so to prevent any further rambling, I will stop this review here.
May 12, 2024
Full review can be found on my TikTok account.
Well, this was a disappointment. Imagine having the most iconic, evil Scottish power couple at your disposal but instead writing about a xenophobic French teenager and a half-English twink. The character of Lady Macbeth was almost unrecognisable with little regard for the source material. Scotland was described like it's the ninth circle of hell and the MC's xenophobia was so overt it would have been funny had the author not doubled down on all of the character's prejudices. All Scottish men are evil brutes in this, apart from the half-English love interest (lmao), and there are only two women apart from the MC, who are unimportant overall. Just a lot of weird choices made, overall. 1/5 stars.
Well, this was a disappointment. Imagine having the most iconic, evil Scottish power couple at your disposal but instead writing about a xenophobic French teenager and a half-English twink. The character of Lady Macbeth was almost unrecognisable with little regard for the source material. Scotland was described like it's the ninth circle of hell and the MC's xenophobia was so overt it would have been funny had the author not doubled down on all of the character's prejudices. All Scottish men are evil brutes in this, apart from the half-English love interest (lmao), and there are only two women apart from the MC, who are unimportant overall. Just a lot of weird choices made, overall. 1/5 stars.
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March 9, 2024all I see is Anya-Taylor Joy
September 6, 2024
2⭐️
kiedys jak sobie przypomnę to sie rozpisze
edit: przypomnialam sobie, rozpisuje sie:
ta ksiazka byla jak kichnięcie, do ktorego nigdy nie dochodzi - masa momentow pelnych napiecia, ktore nagle sie urywa. na początku odnioslam wrazenie, ze bohaterka ma jakis ukryty plan (bo nawet mowila o tym kilka razy?) i dowiemy sie o nim z czasem, przez co bardzo się zawiodlam, gdy nic nie szlo po jej mysli, a badass nastawienie znikalo tak szybko jak sie pojawialo, zastępowane ulegloscia. nie wiem, nie kleilo sie to absolutnie - raz planuje zniszczyc swojego męża i krolestwo, a jak cos nie pojdzie po jej mysli staje sie potulna zeby tylko nie zdenerwować męża.
jakby… girl, pamietasz ze posiadasz niebezpieczna moc?
fast burn w tej ksiazce wygrywa maraton olimpijski chyba - sam pomysl na ta pare byl ciekawy, ale wykonanie… bez komentarza
chyba ta ksiazka miala miec przekaz „leczenie pokoleniowej traumy kobiet w rodzinie Makbet” ale te kilka cytatów o feminine rage ani troche nie wywolalo u mnie poczucia GIRL POWER
i chyba najbardziej unsatysfying zakończenie książki jakie czytalam
ZAPOMNIALABYM: gdzie ten sredniowieczny jezyk przed ktorym ostrzega na początku autorka??? zaginal w tlumaczeniu czy od poczatku go nie bylo? bo sobie dryfował przez niektóre zdania, ale to na tyle
przez pierwszą polowe ksiazki liczylam na jakies powerful zagrania ale im dalej w las, tym ksiazka gorsza
kiedys jak sobie przypomnę to sie rozpisze
edit: przypomnialam sobie, rozpisuje sie:
ta ksiazka byla jak kichnięcie, do ktorego nigdy nie dochodzi - masa momentow pelnych napiecia, ktore nagle sie urywa. na początku odnioslam wrazenie, ze bohaterka ma jakis ukryty plan (bo nawet mowila o tym kilka razy?) i dowiemy sie o nim z czasem, przez co bardzo się zawiodlam, gdy nic nie szlo po jej mysli, a badass nastawienie znikalo tak szybko jak sie pojawialo, zastępowane ulegloscia. nie wiem, nie kleilo sie to absolutnie - raz planuje zniszczyc swojego męża i krolestwo, a jak cos nie pojdzie po jej mysli staje sie potulna zeby tylko nie zdenerwować męża.
jakby… girl, pamietasz ze posiadasz niebezpieczna moc?
fast burn w tej ksiazce wygrywa maraton olimpijski chyba - sam pomysl na ta pare byl ciekawy, ale wykonanie… bez komentarza
chyba ta ksiazka miala miec przekaz „leczenie pokoleniowej traumy kobiet w rodzinie Makbet” ale te kilka cytatów o feminine rage ani troche nie wywolalo u mnie poczucia GIRL POWER
i chyba najbardziej unsatysfying zakończenie książki jakie czytalam
ZAPOMNIALABYM: gdzie ten sredniowieczny jezyk przed ktorym ostrzega na początku autorka??? zaginal w tlumaczeniu czy od poczatku go nie bylo? bo sobie dryfował przez niektóre zdania, ale to na tyle
przez pierwszą polowe ksiazki liczylam na jakies powerful zagrania ale im dalej w las, tym ksiazka gorsza
August 26, 2024
What did Scotland do to hurt Ava Reid?
Want to read
December 21, 2023Consider me aboard the Ava Reid hype train, especially since this is a Shakespeare-inspired novel.
THE COVER JUST GOT REVEALED, I JUST KNOW THE INTERIOR IS GONNA BE AS GORGEOUS AS THE EXTERIOR.
THE COVER JUST GOT REVEALED, I JUST KNOW THE INTERIOR IS GONNA BE AS GORGEOUS AS THE EXTERIOR.
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