If you have any interest in reading this book I would encourage you to basically forget the source material and approach it as a completely original work. Do not expect a faithful retelling of the story or pretty much any of the characters of the original. 

I am genuinely shocked at how much I disliked this book. It was one of my most anticipated books of the year as a HUGE lover of the original play and Lady Macbeth as a character. I even re-read the play before picking this up so my memory would be refreshed (which, in hindsight, was a HORRIBLE mistake because all that did was highlight all the ways in which this book completely ruins the things that made Lady Macbeth an interesting character to me). 

Ava Reid is an undeniably talented writer. Her prose is excellent and she’s great at creating a sense of tension and atmosphere within her stories. That is partly why this is so disappointing - I know Reid is capable of delivering a really compelling story and that just didn’t happen here.

There is a lot to say about the overall plot and structure of the book, but ultimately where this book fails is its characterization. Lady Macbeth is the blueprint of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. She is the mastermind, the cunning planner, the one pulling the strings. She is an external force pushing Macbeth further down his path of ambition and madness, but she also has her own unique characterization and arc. The Lady Macbeth of this book is none of those things. She is a big-tittied 17 year old witch who is motivated out of fear of the men around her (lowkey fair) and nothing else. She is hyper aware of the precarious situation she is in as foreign bride, completely at the mercy of her new stranger husband, who has rumors of her being cursed surrounding her. Throughout the book things just happen to her. She is reactive, responding to the actions of the men who have more agency and influence on the narrative than Roscille ever does. 

Towards the beginning, we get this great scene where she basically orchestrates Macbeth’s attack on Cawdor and she is the one who adds this additional layer of justification for Macbeth by forging a letter incriminating Cawdor as treasonous to the king. This was actually very compelling and it made me excited that, from then on, Macbeth would see how intelligent she is and would view her as an equal, which is much closer to the dynamic the two of them have in the play. But that’s not the case. Macbeth, who is a completely flat and uncomplicated Big Evil Guy, gets his prophecy that he will be king and forces Roscille to do the deed so it can’t be traced back to him. She complies, not because she has any agency or any personal stake in Macbeth being king (she doesn’t seem to give a flip either way, as long as she’s safe and he’s happy), but because she is “just a dagger in [her] husband’s hand.” 

This book is presented as a feminist retelling, but it’s not feminist to create a narrative where the FMC has LESS agency, personality, and interesting characterization than she did in the source material. It isn’t feminist to take a relatively loving and respectful dynamic, that between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and twist their story to feature abuse and sexual violence when none existed in the source material. It’s actually more interesting for women to have meaningful and loving relationships with the men in their lives and still explore the ways in which they are still harmed by the patriarchy. You don’t actually have to present all the men in the book (except Lisander) as giant, cartoonishly evil monsters with little nuance or individual personality in order to explore gender dynamics of this time frame.

There are lots of other small things that drove me insane that were sprinkled throughout this book - from the weird romance between Roscille and Lisander, the confusing and sometimes problematic nature of Roscille’s magic gaze, and the underdeveloped and pointless “backstory” given to the three witches, but you get the idea of the core reasons that I disliked this book. 2 stars for now but if I get even madder over time I might bump it down.