Book Review: Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid

Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.75 hate-filled stars. I didn't know that this would be a feminist retelling, but it made me rage...so, so hard. I hated all the men in this book and wished they would disappear each time they showed up, including Macbeth. I started to like him in the end, but then it just went down the drain around the second-third act of this book. I was cheering for Lady Macbeth the whole book and hoped everything was going well for her until Macbeth started to change for the worst, and then I got worried and angry to the point that I was so mad at this book. So, so mad at it.

At the beginning of the book, it was really good--Lady Roscille comes to Glammis to meet with her new husband, gets married, and she starts asking for gifts because she didn't want to lie in bed with him. After hearing stories about how people treat their women, she was trying very hard not to be with him in bed. Then she meets the three women who are ancient and old and does Macbeth's laundry, and when he asks of a prophecy, they all reply: "Hail Macbeth, Thane of Glammis, Hail Macbeth, Thane of Cawder!" which I'm like, "Okay, cool bro." but oh how it gets weird the moment he went to Cawder to conquer it and come back with Roscille's prize....

One day, Roscille is tasked to write a fake letter to King Duncane or some enemy while Macbeth is away, and she and Banquho's son Fleance decide to go and deliver it, when I think something bad happens, and she cooks up a plan to trick Macbeth into believing that she and Fleance got attacked by nameless thieves and had to injure Fleance and herself, just to make it believable. Well Macbeth believes it, even when he comes back with her first requested gift: a golden necklace with a ruby in the middle, and it puts it on tightly around her neck and even does a ritual to see if Fleance's neck starts to bleed.

Then after that, when King Duncane comes to Glammis, Macbeth tells Roscille to kill King Duncane and his sons, but thanks to her power of compulsion, she has two guards kill the king, but his son, Lisander...well, she tried to kill him. But then after almost laying with him in bed, he discovers the dagger and starts to ask her questions, in which she tried to answer and then goes back to her room. And then once this part happens, everything went to hell immediately and I started to rage read this book real fast.

When Macbeth leaves for war and he leaves Roscille in charge of Glammis, Banquho doesn't like that. He tries to rule it the way Macbeth wants it, but Roscille does what she wanted, which results in Lisander being thrown in the dungeons and her getting a beating on her legs. When Macbeth comes back a second time in a row with Roscille's second prize, he does take advantage of her and the two are in bed, finally, even though once she and Lisander break out of the dungeons they do make love, that's when close to the end, Macbeth started doing things to her that made me so mad.

One, he threw Roscille to the witches and left her there to rot and die and turn into one of them, but the witches and his ex wife decides to change that and let her live, but she came back in the end and fulfilled that prophecy, he covers her eyes so none of the men gets compelled to do anything if she looks at him, and other things.

This is a really good book, the writing was great, but good lord I hated the men in this book.

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