Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - Lady Macbeth

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Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

92 reviews

regent_ace's review against another edition

4.75

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

what_sadie_reads's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

peppermintlegs's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Lady Macbeth retells and revamps the story of…I mean, guess. Lady Macbeth, or Roscille of Breizh, is married off to Macbeth, Thane of Glammis, in medieval Scotland at seventeen years of age. She’s known in her home court for her ethereal, supernatural beauty: her silver hair, unbelievably pale skin, and eyes so capable of ensorcelling that she wears a veil to protect the men around her. She’s called witch-touched, and the men around her fear her for it. Moving to Scotland is a dramatic change: Roscille’s handmaiden is removed from her and presumably killed, the castle is high on a cliff’s edge over a cold sea in constant turmoil, and the landscape and court are equally cold and barren. Macbeth of Glammis is an imposing figure, both in notoriety and physical stature, treating Roscille gently at first, but as his power and ambition grow, feeding off each other, he becomes more violent towards her and his fellow Scotsmen.

As the focus of the Macbeth tale has changed, so have the major themes. The original explores ambition and manipulation: Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth is known in literature for her maturity and uncontested wielding of her power over her husband, and her eventual madness. Reid’s Roscille embodies the ermine of the French court, a naïf thrown alone into a culture and role only familiar for the violence enacted upon the women in the space. And this is the theme of this telling: the eternal and inevitable violence and abuse men do to women, and the ways in which women bear these mistreatments. The witches of the play become Les Lavandières, or the washerwomen, who Macbeth keeps at his disposal for his prophecies. Duncane’s sons become more prominent players, and Macduff is relegated to a handful of paragraphs offscreen.

Reid’s Lady Macbeth is atmospheric and tense, drawn with cold, harsh lines and ragged texture. Roscille is torn between her naïveté and the role thrust upon her as wife and queen, and she finds herself similarly torn between love for another man and service to her husband and country. Attempts at petty grabs for agency are rebuked and punished, and only once she is disposed of entirely does she grasp the power she’s been able to wield the whole time. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the novel and the incorporation of additional supernatural elements that would have been present in the folk tales of the period—the setting is used to its fullest extent. The twists on Les Lavandières and Banqhuo and Fléance’s roles were used to expand upon Macbeth’s character, as for the first half of the novel he spends so much time offscreen. The confluence of cultures—French, Breizh, English, Norse, and Scottish—fleshed out the sprawling politics behind and beyond this Scottish clan.

The nature of adaptation and retelling, however, is that it inherently draws comparison to the source material. Trading the Lady Macbeth for this child in a hostile environment is a bold move, as is the highlighting of more minor or entirely off-page characters, such as Duncane’s sons and the Banqhuo line. I love a clever, manipulative royal, but Roscille was constantly thwarted and punished for the only power she had, which does fall in line with the theme of men’s violence towards women. I do believe I would have found the novel more enjoyable as its own work, divorced from the cultural weight of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth—I found myself continually questioning why Reid chose that character to tell this story. Truly, I think Roscille could have been an Ophelia or a Desdemona and would have borne equal similarity to her source. I’d recommend Reid’s Lady Macbeth for those seeking an atmospheric tragedy, political medieval fantasy, or those who want to explore Lady Macbeth’s growth from a porcelain naïf to the Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare’s first act.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Content Warnings

devynreadsnovels's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

annamay1021's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lady Macbeth is author Ava Reid's reimagining of Macbeth- but from a woman's perspective. Reid's writing made this a super fun read, albeit dark. Roscille is sent away by her father to be married to Lord Macbeth, in a completely different country with a different language, customs, without the support of her handmaiden. We get a glimpse into Roscille's secret, which the reader knows more and more about as the book goes on.

The best part of this book is Roscille's intelligence, masked (no pun intended) behind her position as a mere Lady. Ava Reid's A Study in Drowning was one of my favorite reads of last year, and the writing style does not disappoint in Lady Macbeth. I really enjoyed her reimagining of the classic, and this book contained the perfect touch of fantasy.

Parts of the plot are a bit muddy, but this could be due to Ava's writing style (which I enjoy regardless of the content). Others may say that her writing is pretentious and too flowery, but her take on this Shakespeare classic will definitely wow her fans!

Content Warnings

cherireadsall's review against another edition

4.75

dark mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Yes,yes,yes! A beautiful twisted story that reaches through time and latches onto your soul. Descriptions of witches and magic and damp castles, this is exactly the escape I needed. I felt like I was stranger in a strange land along with Lady Macbeth, and loved the touch of mystery and building suspense tinged with romance.

Content Warnings

princegene95's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Amazing adaptation of Macbeth from the pov of the Lady.

Content Warnings

mikaelawithak's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

chelsea_shelves's review against another edition

2.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I have a lot of feelings about this book because it was so highly anticipated, so I’ll put a quick review up top.

TLDR :

Stunning lyrical prose in a well researched story that couldn’t decide if it’s dark fairytale, historical fiction or fantasy that beats readers over the head with feminist-ish commentary. Character development is lacking and the FMC is not a baddie like the OG Lady Macbeth. The witches could steal the show but are not featured nearly enough.

—-

Full review:

This was quite a letdown for me as I so love Macbeth and the poetic prose of Ava Reid. I expected a lyrical, cutting and powerful retelling. What I got was lyrical but somehow lackluster while being extremely brutal. I will start with what I did appreciate. The bleak atmosphere was relentless and gothic. I loved the historical detail and especially the etymological attention throughout the novel. Reading it on my Kindle allowed me to look up words, places and people. Some were not even in Wikipedia, and I had to do a deep dive to find out more. This shows the research Reid put into this work. This lifted my rating.

The three witches were brilliant and by far my favorite part of the story. Eerie, unsettling and then later human, comedic, redeeming. I would read a book centered on them, for sure.

Now on to my critique. I found this overall to be overwritten and heavy handed with its feminist message of men are bad simple minded creatures and women are trapped. Set in the 900s it’s certainly fair to paint an extremely male controlled world, but the excessive commentary had me rolling my eyes far too often. It took away from what felt like a beautiful fairytale in the beginning - strong in metaphor, imagery and symbolism. However, every time I thought I understood what type of story I was reading I was proven wrong. 65% of the way in I had accepted that I was reading a dark historical fiction with some leaning into folklore of the time. Nope, suddenly I was to believe dragons and unicorns were absolutely real. Until that point the “magic” was more myth and superstition - fear, not reality.

So then it was a fantasy - except it wasn’t. It returned to brutal gothic drear. Then the ending surged back into high fantasy….. While I like good genre blurring, this did not work and did not feel believable. Just frustrating.

With the exception of Roscille I found most characters to be quite flat. Even her love interest as the redeeming male character was uncomplicated (save for his transformation which I will call more of an attention grab for marketing than character development…trying to be vague to not spoil the plot). Maybe this is back to the simple fairytale formatting, an attempt to make the characters archetypal - which I could be on board with if it was more consistent. The characters I did find compelling were brushed over. What a tale we could have received if we learned more about the backstory of the witches, the handmaids, Macbeth himself. But this was a world mostly devoid of females except for our heroine… a confused 17-year-old far from the fierce middle aged Lady Macbeth Shakespeare envisioned.

Taking away my comparison to the source material, I would still be underwhelmed and ultimately annoyed with how the ending didn’t match with the rest of the book. It was not convincing. So much potential here. I wanted to love it. I tried hard to love it. I could not.

Thank goodness for the absolutely gorgeous prose. Many lines I reread out loud just for their beauty or striking pain. For that reason, and for the clearly academic mind of the author, I may read more from Ava Reid. I’ve heard good things about Juniper and Thorn and ASID.

Content Warnings

jessica_burns's review against another edition

2.75

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I had such high hopes for this book. I have loved everything else by Ava Reid but this one was a miss for me. Maybe I went into it with the wrong expectations but it felt as though the story kept building to something that never happened. Like we were always on the precipice of some twist or character development that never paid off.

That said, the writing is gorgeous. It’s dark and gothic, gritty and languid. Everything is tinged with sea water and grime and I love that Reid was able to so effortlessly take me to Scotland with Roscille.

I would look up any trigger warnings before going into this because the themes are definitely dark.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Content Warnings

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