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winnjess_ 's review for:

Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid
1.5
dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
Lady Macbeth: A Novel

Genre: fEmInISt REtELliNg 
Rating: 2/5 ⭐️

GIRL WHAT DO YOU MEAN FEMINIST RETELLING?????? 

Ok so what I really mean by that is that maybe Ava Reid as an author is simply not for me. I love the aesthetic of her books — the misty gothic settings of both this and A Study in Drowning are elite — but the stories just piss me off, specifically how she describes intimacy after assault and takes agency away from her FMCs. 

Moral of the story: whenever Ava Reid inevitably produces a book about the water serpent witch that may or may not have founded the Plantagenet royal line, somebody stop me before I read it. 

Pros: 
  • The idea? (I’m not sold on this being a pro, maybe Lady Macbeth can stand on her own and doesn’t need to be retold at all.) 
  • The setting 
  • The scraps of mythology she deigns to leave for us. 

Cons:
  • The writing is SO passive. 
  • Seriously, what rape victim immediately seduces a literal monster while she’s still bleeding from the assault? 
  • For a feminist retelling, Lady Macbeth probably didn’t need to go from one of the most notable of Shakespeare’s characters to a waif of a thing with ✨magic eyes that ensorcel men✨ to whom things just happen.
  • Also what does the author have against Scotland? 

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