A review by gobblebook
Foul Is Fair by Hannah Capin

3.0

This is a retelling of Macbeth, set in a contemporary private high school. The narrator, Jade, is both Lady Macbeth and one of the witches. After she is drugged and raped at a party, she vows revenge on everyone who was involved, transfers to their high school, and systematically arranges their murders. This isn't for the faint-hearted. The rape itself is never explicitly described, but it is referred to constantly throughout the book. One of the witches is trans, and bullied for it. And there is a lot of blood. The narrator constantly describes a vicious and heartless need for revenge. I read Capin's "The Dead Queen's Club," and I was hoping this would be similar. In some ways, it is - obviously both books are set in high school, and they both focus on the incredible power of female friendships in the face of patriarchy, but this book is nowhere near as clever as "The Dead Queen's Club." "The Dead Queen's Club" is funny and full of very clever references to Tudor culture that really pay off if you're a history nerd, but this book pretty much has one trick, which gets flogged to death. The book is one giant revenge fantasy, and it's really hard to sustain that for an entire book - by the end, Jade's constant repetition of her need for revenge is really tedious. At first, it's interesting to see how Capin fits the events of Macbeth into her story - as a reader, I was waiting for the big scenes ("Is this a knife I see here before me?" "Out, out, damned spot!") and it was fun to see how they played out in the context of a high school.... but then I was really disappointed when there was no Birnam Wood. As a reader, I ran out of steam a little over halfway through the book and it was a slog to get to the end - it felt like Capin's creativity dwindled as the book went on.