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A review by babeybel
Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.25
This review contains mentions of sexual violence, so please be mindful of yourself if this affects you.
I really wanted to like this book. I have heard great things about Ava Reid’s A Study In Drowning so as soon as I saw this months before release I had it in my TBR pile and picked it up when I was browsing my local bookshop. Despite feeling excitement to finally read this retelling of Macbeth, I was very disappointed with what I was reading.
Lady Macbeth is considered a powerful female figure in classical fiction who doesn’t take shit from anyone and pushes her husband to act on the Three Witches prophecies. In this book, she is a timid 17 year old girl who feels guilty about doing bad things to bad people and girlbosses her way into killing Macbeth so she can marry a sexy younger prince who is also a dragon.
I was just angry at the blatant misogyny in this book. The complete lack of female characters as a means to show how brutish the Scottish are (which I will continue in a moment) is an abhorrently insulting way to push the narrative. It speaks volumes that Roscille only becomes motivated to kill her husband once another man enters her life. The repetitive descriptions of rape and sexual assault and coercion that she faces only to be saved by one of the “nice guys” who is the only man not to be outwardly sexist. I don’t think being able to just “walk off” constant sexual violence is as powerful as Reid thinks it is here — Roscille doesn’t acknowledge what comes after being raped, and how her body feels. In fact, the book is written in a way that it barely affects her. If you are going to go to the trouble of writing sexual violence into your book, at least have the decency to spend time writing about how it would actually affect the character. I’m not a fan of rape in any media I consume, but at least don’t just throw it in there for the misogyny tab of your world building.
As for the setting, it is extremely stereotypical and xenophobic towards Scotland, Scottish people, and the Celts. You’d swear that Reid googled what Romans thought of the Celts and chose to depict them no other way. She has no true grasp on Scottish history, culture, or language and has decided to just create her own version of them to suit her attempt at a girl-power narrative, particularly falsifying that there were no women whatsoever in Scottish courts. The amount of sexual violence that is mentioned over and over as a means to show just how “evil” this new “miserable land” is to the reader is so hamfisted to the point that I just became numb to it. Reid would have been better off just changing the setting into a made-up world and replacing the characters names with a couple of refreshes of Fantasy Name Generator.
Slow paced, insultingly xenophobic, and a main character that is trying to pander to feminism that it becomes almost entirely satirical with its misogyny. I’m going to either sell or donate my copy of this book because I really do not want to see it again.
I really wanted to like this book. I have heard great things about Ava Reid’s A Study In Drowning so as soon as I saw this months before release I had it in my TBR pile and picked it up when I was browsing my local bookshop. Despite feeling excitement to finally read this retelling of Macbeth, I was very disappointed with what I was reading.
Lady Macbeth is considered a powerful female figure in classical fiction who doesn’t take shit from anyone and pushes her husband to act on the Three Witches prophecies. In this book, she is a timid 17 year old girl who feels guilty about doing bad things to bad people and girlbosses her way into killing Macbeth so she can marry a sexy younger prince who is also a dragon.
I was just angry at the blatant misogyny in this book. The complete lack of female characters as a means to show how brutish the Scottish are (which I will continue in a moment) is an abhorrently insulting way to push the narrative. It speaks volumes that Roscille only becomes motivated to kill her husband once another man enters her life. The repetitive descriptions of rape and sexual assault and coercion that she faces only to be saved by one of the “nice guys” who is the only man not to be outwardly sexist. I don’t think being able to just “walk off” constant sexual violence is as powerful as Reid thinks it is here — Roscille doesn’t acknowledge what comes after being raped, and how her body feels. In fact, the book is written in a way that it barely affects her. If you are going to go to the trouble of writing sexual violence into your book, at least have the decency to spend time writing about how it would actually affect the character. I’m not a fan of rape in any media I consume, but at least don’t just throw it in there for the misogyny tab of your world building.
As for the setting, it is extremely stereotypical and xenophobic towards Scotland, Scottish people, and the Celts. You’d swear that Reid googled what Romans thought of the Celts and chose to depict them no other way. She has no true grasp on Scottish history, culture, or language and has decided to just create her own version of them to suit her attempt at a girl-power narrative, particularly falsifying that there were no women whatsoever in Scottish courts. The amount of sexual violence that is mentioned over and over as a means to show just how “evil” this new “miserable land” is to the reader is so hamfisted to the point that I just became numb to it. Reid would have been better off just changing the setting into a made-up world and replacing the characters names with a couple of refreshes of Fantasy Name Generator.
Slow paced, insultingly xenophobic, and a main character that is trying to pander to feminism that it becomes almost entirely satirical with its misogyny. I’m going to either sell or donate my copy of this book because I really do not want to see it again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Violence, Vomit, and War
Minor: Abortion