It took me a little while to start enjoying Foul Is Fair and appreciate the author's writing style. Initially, I wasn't sure if I'd finish it but I'm glad I persevered. I enjoyed it and Jade is a very special character. Foul Is Fair is a stark reminder of how endemic rape culture is in society and I fully backed Jade's plans as she plotted the demise of the golden boys. This book is wild, ruthless and unapologetic. Jade probably isn't the kind of person we imagine when we think of rape and sexual assault victims. She isn't a victim at all, nor is she a survivor. What do sexual assault victims even look like? How should they process their trauma and what does healing look like for them? These are some of the questions I grappled with as I read the book. As well as being entertaining and hard to put down, Foul Is Fair encouraged me to think carefully about my preconceptions and views around sexual assault and rape. I love what Hannah Capin did with this story.

Huge thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with an advance digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Link to my full review: https://tenelleottleymatthew.com/2020/01/book-review-foul-is-fair-by-hannah-capin/

I found this difficult to read. I was unable to finish. I like the idea of the plot, but the language and behaviour of the girls just doesn’t feel natural; like teenage girls trying to be Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, just didn’t work for me.

An excellent book about revenge and taking back the power from those that try to steal it from you.

After Elle's drink is spiked at a party on her 16th birthday, she vows revenge on those involved. With the help of her coven, she does just that, one person at a time.

Capin has a real skill as she has you cheering for characters to be murdered as well as making you understand Elle's trauma without naming exactly what happened or providing too much detail. This book may be triggering to some due to the sensitive subject matter however my takeaway from the book was that it is an extremely empowering read.

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

I was so looking forward to read this book.
Strong female characters? Yay!
Macbeth retelling? Heck yeah!
And I was so, so disappointed. 
It's not a bad book, but... 
Well, it's just not good?
It was too unrealistic for me. Everything, the whole grand plan, it was just so unrealistic.
The other thing, the characters. As much as I felt so sorry for Elle/Jade, I didn't really like her or her friends at all. They were all so... empty.  All of them. 
The book was well written, but it took me ages to really get into it. Sometimes I felt like the author tried too much and sometimes the main characters sounded so pretentious. It didn't buy me at all.
Sadly, I can't say that I enjoyed this book.

The subject on the promo email for this described it as “Feminist, man-hating filth”, which was honestly enough for me to be intrigued!

This is described as a ‘revenge fantasy’ which is pretty spot on. After being assaulted at a house party Jade seeks revenge on the group of boys responsible.

A word of warning, this gets dark. When the synopsis says she “gets bloody satisfaction” that’s an understatement.

I’m not quite sure how to feel about Jade’s actions, because there’s no denying she takes things to a seriously dark place. What she does isn’t particularly ‘right’ but at the same time what the boys did was completely unforgivable. You find yourself disgusted with what Jade is doing, but also supporting her in it!

This was an incredibly dark and powerful read.

(I’ve also just discovered Hannah Capin’s debut was a Henry VIII retelling and I’m all for that!)

I’ll admit that I think the cover was my main motive for requesting this pitch-black YA bloodfest. NetGalley pitched it as ‘a razor sharp revenge thriller for the #MeToo generation’ which is definitely an accurate overview. However, I definitely wasn’t prepared for what I got.

Jade Khanjara and her three best friends Jenny, Summer and Mads rule the LA social scene and decide how every night ends. Except one night, when squad members of St Andrew’s Prep Varsity lacrosse team spike Jade’s drink and brutally attack her. The ‘coven’ take things into their own taloned hands and when revenge tastes this sweet, not a single innocent soul is getting out alive…

Jade and her girls are FIERCE. I can’t express that too strongly (hence the caps!). They will stop at absolutely nothing to exact revenge on dangerous predators and their allies. They’re so cold and unfeeling that my eyebrows migrated to my hairline for most of my reading experience. I couldn’t decide whether they were human or witches of an actual coven -sometimes they even seemed vampiric. Perhaps Capin purposefully kept this ambiguous so that readers can decide for themselves what’s really going on. 

If the girls are intended to be entirely human, Jade’s parents’ blind eyes and even encouragement of their daughter’s unspeakable behaviour is incredibly unrealistic. They aren’t featured very often but I was a little confused in the instances that they were. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the family dynamics, which feel quite chilly and devoid of emotion. So I suppose the explanation that they are some kind of supernatural being fits!

There are moments where we get glimpses of Jade’s true hidden vulnerability. She insists so violently that showing and feeling emotion is a weakness that it almost feels fake. The fact that her freezing cold demeanour is maintained throughout the book suggests that she really is this evil, twisted personality but there’s something about it that just feels a bit off to me. Like there is a different frightened girl inside that unfortunately we never get to see properly. I’d have definitely been able to relate to her more, had I seen more of the softness that I can vaguely read in the subtext. 
Mack’s character broke my heart a little until the very end, when the truth about his role in the attack came out. He has the air of someone who has been an outsider his whole life with ambitions to be loved and admired by everyone. I don’t know whether he genuinely loved Jade or whether he just saw her murder mission as his ticket to the ‘crown’ but he had an innocence about him that I definitely didn’t see through. I think Jade was genuinely beginning to love him too, as I could almost see the conflict within her. Their relationship is possibly the most darkly complex I’ve ever read in a YA book, so kudos to Capin for that!

The language and writing style is a love letter to Shakespearean tragedies. It’s littered with dramatic imagery and poetic turns of phrase and the fact it’s a not-so-loose retelling of Macbeth isn’t a well-kept secret. Capin has borrowed character names such as Duncan, Malcolm, Duffy (Macduff), Banks (Banquo), Mack (Macbeth) and Porter. There are also themes of revenge, guilt and ambition as well as an alarmingly blatant reference to the Scottish play when Jade is scrubbing blood off of her hands. Of course, Jenny, Summer and Mads and their eerie prophesies represent the three witches too. The title is also taken from the line ‘foul is fair and fair is foul’, meaning that what appears to be good may not always be so and vice versa -a recurring motif in the novel.

I thought it was such a clever idea to inject contemporary issues such as date rape and feminism into a centuries-old tale. It also managed to highlight how revenge, ambition and social politics are timeless and universal. Whether you’re a 17th century Scottish general or a 21st century LA teenager, everyone is subject to the same passions, lies and downfalls.

Despite the copious amounts of drama and murder, I found it quite a tough read and I definitely didn’t fly through it. It may have been because I just couldn’t attach myself to any of the characters properly due to a lack of warmth, which I personally need to really like someone. Of course, as a woman I was on board with the girls’ revenge mission but I couldn’t help feeling that perhaps murder wasn’t the most realistic manifestation of it. Unless of course, it is actually a very dark fantasy novel, in which case it’s a work of true genius.

Hii bookworms!! Happy publication day to ‘Foul is Fair’ by @tldaaollf and an added thank you to @netgalley and @penguinteen / @penguinrandomhouse for the chance to review an advanced copy! ⁣
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TW: sexual assault, PTSD, murder and revenge. ⁣
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FOUL IS FAIR BY @tldaaollf ⁣
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SYNOPSIS: 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘣𝘰𝘺, 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘣𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘱 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭'𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘺. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘯: 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘺 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘬, 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘺. 𝘍𝘰𝘶𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘍𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩.⁣
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𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗟 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: 5/5 STARS ⁣
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𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦: The coven! ⁣
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𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗧 𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦: The St. Andrews boys but particularly Duncan.⁣
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𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗔𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗦: So, this book a feminist re-telling of Macbeth set in modern times. If that doesn’t hook you then I really don’t know what else will. This book is filled to the brim with redemption, with ruthless women taking back their respect, and the epic battle against sexual assault. The characters are complex and even though the story isn’t quite as long, you soon feel a part of Jade’s massacre.  The story unfolds beautifully, where you’re enraptured the entire time. I also fell in love with Hannah Capin’s writing style; it felt so unique and intriguing. ⁣
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𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣𝗦: Honestly, forget relationships, this book is a champion for strong female friendships and the idea of women sticking up for one another and not allowing silence or money or power or privilege stand in their way. ⁣
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𝗥𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗗 𝗙𝗢𝗥: readers looking for one of the most phenomenal books on female empowerment.

Foul is Fair is a slick and bloody update of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. A girl is raped at a party, and she vows revenge on the group of Alpha male schoolboys who made it happen. Jade, the protagonist, chooses a boy as a patsy.  The plan works fast, and the boys come to enjoyably nasty ends, aided and abetted by Jade's coven of witchy helpers. Jade begins to fall for her patsy as the book reaches its' climax, but there us no stopping the plan. There will be blood, and lots of it. For any teenage young woman that's ever been treated badly, this is the book for you.

**I was provided with an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

On her 16th birthday Elizabeth Jade Khanjara and her 3 best friends set out to party the night away however, her night doesn't go as planned. Drink spiked, body bruised and memory hazed - Elle plots to get revenge on those who attacked her. In a world where people with "dazzling smiles" and well-lined pockets can get away with anything and everything, Elle isn't going to let them.

Foul is Fair is a modern-day teen retelling of Macbeth that doesn't pull its punches. I’ll straight up say that this book is DARK and very violent. I’d advise checking out the content warnings on the author’s website before picking it up as there are some very triggering and graphic scenes.

The lead protagonist is just as, or do I say even more ruthless and zealous than her Shakespearean equivalent, Lady Macbeth. Hell bent on her quest for vengeance, she in no way makes herself a likeable character. I usually find myself struggling to stay invested in a story when this is the case but I was keen to see this book through to the end. 

Capin’s writing was definitely what I enjoyed the most. The prose for the most part had a poetic and Shakespearean-esque feel to it, adding just enough melodrama to both enhance the setting and fit the protagonist’s voice. The short snappy chapters meant the timeline of the story more or less matched that of the play. As someone who studied Macbeth back at school the various parallels and references to the original were great to follow. Though I also liked how the 3 witches were given the roles of the 3 best friends in this version, ever loyal and ever protective of their power-hungry queen.

Now this book has some pretty unrealistic elements so won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. However, what deserves credit is how within the narrative Capin very honestly sheds light on issues such as sexual assault and rape culture and the impacts they can have.

All in all this was a unique story and I feel it would do well if adapted for the screen.
Final Rating - 3.5/5 Stars

I loved this!! Not only for the Shakespeare inspiration, but also for the dark, troubling yet relevant story that we were presented with. First class!

My thanks to Penguin Random House U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Foul Is Fair’ by Hannah Capin in exchange for an honest review. 

Elizabeth (Elle) Jade Khanjara and her three best friends rule their glittering LA circle. On Elle’s sixteenth birthday they decide to crash an exclusive party held by students of St.Andrews Prep. However, the night takes a sinister turn when four boys spike Elle’s drink and rape her. 

Certain that the entitled boys backed up by family lawyers will face no consequences, Elle doesn’t report the attack and reinvents herself as Jade. Together with her friends, dubbed the Coven, she seeks bloody vengeance. Only their deaths will satisfy her.

This YA novel was deemed as “perfect for fans of ‘Killing Eve’ and Tarantino” and that certainly describes me; ‘Kill Bill’ ranks among my favourite films. Add to this ‘Foul is Fair’ is loosely based on ‘MacBeth’. Yet I found that it just didn’t work for me.

So while the premise intrigued me and there were sections that I enjoyed, I found the over-the-top, melodramatic aspects of the plot were hard to accept. The decision to kill not only the rapists but others who Jade considered enablers seemed extreme. It reminded me of the kind of spoof slasher series, such as ‘Scream Queens’ or ‘AHS’, yet without any of their black humour/satire.

I did give it my best though on first try I set it aside and really wondered whether to read on or abandon. I took a break and returned to the beginning and read through. I did appreciate the nods to the Scottish play throughout but it just never came together for me.

Perhaps my mindset is too much in synch with detectives like SVU’s Olivia Benson to not welcome such a bloody revenge over conviction and incarceration. It’s never easy to give a thumbs down. 

It seems that I am clearly in the minority by not embracing this novel enthusiastically. Obviously it is the sort of novel that comes with trigger warnings, even though the rape itself is not depicted given that Jade is its narrator and can’t remember the details due to being drugged. 

Overall, it was too angry and bleak a novel for my taste.

When 16-year-old Elle's drink is spiked and she is attacked at a party by 4 boys, she reinvents herself as Jade, enrols in the school her attackers attend, and proceeds to take her bloody revenge. 

It's an intriguing plot line in the day of #MeToo, a time when a girl can be attacked by multiple assailants and yet the narrative focuses on her behaviour and her reputation. I liked that it was loosely based on Macbeth, I thought that came through quite strongly, and there are shades of Heathers as some other reviewers have mentioned. None of the characters were particularly likeable but that seems to have been the intent. What I didn't like so much was the way it was written. It had so much potential as a very dark and twisty book, but the language came across (to me) as rather pretentious and I felt that this detracted from book's impact. Overall it was an intriguing read but one that I came away from slightly disappointed.

TW: sexual assault, violence, murder, suicide. 

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers, Penguin Random House UK, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

This reminds me so much of Heathers for the 20s, a book I never knew we needed but Wow its amazing ! Perfect for fans of killing eve , this is a tale of passion and revenge achieved  in the ultimate way, dark and gothic a truly gripping tale. Well written, fast paced, full of twists and turns this is a fabulous read and one of my favourite reads and I think will be one of the best of this year. 

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

What a crazy book! This is a modern twist on Macbeth and it's full of revenge, drama and teenage angst.  It was totally over the top, but once you accept that it's a great read. The girls "coven" are completely twisted and their ability to manipulate others is impressive! As they embark on their masterplan for revenge they seem to eliminate their targets at an alarming rate - you could never say this book was boring!
It was a dark, dramatic, macabre tale and I loved that feel to it. It reminded me a bit of Pretty Little Liars. I can imagine this isn't to everyone's taste as it's fairly unbelievable, but if you just go with the crazy I think it's a really enjoyable book.

As soon as I started reading this book I knew it wasn’t for everyone. Hannah Capin uses a very distinct writing style in this book and I don’t think it will work for everyone. I loved it right away and it got me in the perfect mood for the story. The writing style created an atmosphere for me that worked like a charm!

Foul is Fair deals with very dark themes and the writer wrote an in depth overview of triggerwarnings. I really like that she did that and think it's important to be available for readers who might need it. Before the story starts Jade is raped by a group of private school boys and this is her tale of revenge. Her idea of revenge involves a plan for killing the guilty parties so you can imagine how dark it gets ;)

The main inspiration for the book is Macbeth but you can also find Heathers, Mean Girls and AHS ‘Coven’ in there. Yes, these characters are absolutely horrible and this is not a healthy way to deal with trauma. But it makes for a delicious read! And I could definitely imagine the joy someone could find in reading about Jade’s revenge on these boys. That does not mean I or the author are saying this is the way to deal with trauma. But I think we can all agree that people get away with rape way to easily and when do get sentenced its usually a joke compared to what they did to the person they raped. 

I loved how this story enfolded and couldn’t put it down. It was such a quick read for me! I kept telling my mom all that happened because I needed to talk about it haha. She hopes it gets translated in Dutch so she can read it too!

There was a very nice diversity present in the coven. We got a transgender character, a bisexual or lesbian character, and Jade is Indian. I loved how all of this diversity was simply present. It didn't feel forced and it was just a nice representation of the world around us. I also quite liked Jade's parents. They were very supportive of their daughter. 

For me there was only one issue that prevented me from giving this 5 stars. Mack and Jade got together incredibly fast, a bit to fast for it to be believable in my opinion. I get that stretching it out might've made for a slower paced book but it was just a bit unbelievable. The ending went equally fast, and I liked to have seen that drawn out a bit more as well. I even reread a certain part two or three times because it went so fast, I didn't fully grasp what was going on. Luckily we are getting a sequel and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Well I've never read Mcbeth so I can't draw comparisons from it like some readers have but I loved the whole idea of the revenge plot against a group of school boys for doing what they did. Sadly for me I just couldn't get into this one. I just wasn't a fan of how it read and spent alot of it thinking what the hell am I reading! I can see it's a very popular book when you read back through people's comments it just wasn't for me

“Fair is foul and foul is fair,” a quote from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, inspires the title of Hannah Capin’s latest novel which is a modern and unapologetically twisted re-telling of Shakespeare’s tragic, dark, and bloody play. Packed full of clever nods to Shakespeare’s original and quotes pulled directly from the text and dropped into the new narrative, Capin’s novel is a perfectly contemporary new take on the story which still successfully maintains the bare-boned structure, wickedness and gore of Shakespeare’s Scottish play.

In Hannah Capin’s Foul is Fair, Lady Macbeth is depicted by Jade, an LA teenager who attends a party with her three best friends (also known as her coven) for her 16th birthday, has her drink spiked and is sexually assaulted. “I decide how it ends. Every night except one.”

Instead of reporting the attack, Jade decides to take things into her own hands, snatch back the power that’s been taken from her, and take revenge on the boys. Jade is the perfect example of a woman who does not want to be a ‘survivor’ or a ‘victim’ of sexual assault, who boldly takes ownership over her body and her trauma, and says “those boys didn’t turn me into anything.” All Jade really wants is to regain her strength and power.

A re-telling of Macbeth for the #MeToo and #TimesUp era, Hannah Capin’s Foul is Fair is a book dedicated, “To all who survive, every day, in spite of everything: those who forgive and those who fight, those who seek justice and those who seek revenge, those who have stood up with the whole work watching and those whose stories will never be told. You are strength and you are power.” The narrative which in it’s dark and twisted way condones vigilante justice and revenge, shines a much-needed spotlight on rape culture, gender-based violence and slut-shaming in the book’s fierce feminist-battle cry of vengeance.

Capin’s Foul is Fair also tackles several other issues including abusive relationships, bullying and suicide. What’s more, through Jade’s friend Mads, Capin’s novel examines transphobia and transphobic bullying. Although Mads’ gender identity is never explicitly cited in the book, references to Mads’ “deadname”, flashbacks to transphobic behaviour in the school playground and quotes such as; “The first day Mads’s father let her be her real self at school,” drop hints to the reader that Mads is transgender. While at the same time, the subtly of these hints, and the agency Mads maintains throughout the novel (despite the bullying), show how easily a true friend can accept their best friend’s gender identity and how powerful this acceptance can be; “Mads, my Mads, who once upon a time when we were eight and taping knockout-pink Barbie Band-Aids over skinned knees, looked at me and told me the name she wasn’t and said I’m Madalena, and I said Good.”

Hannah Capin’s Foul is Fair is a truly intersectional feminist tale for a modern age. An unforgettable, gripping, thrilling and blood-thirsty novel which leaves you thinking about it long after you finish reading it. Fast-paced and dripping in blood, there’s never a dull moment in this brilliant and powerful new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which would definitely make an amazing film or even TV series.

Warning, while this book does not depict the full rape scene, flashbacks are featured throughout, therefore for anyone who may be triggered by a close examination of sexual trauma, this book will not be a safe read. What’s more, any readers who are uncomfortable with substance abuse, physical violence, gore, murder, suicide, transphobia or bullying may find this book a difficult read.

I did like the idea of this and the way it set to adapt the original play but I just did not care for the characters and found huge portions of it just ridicolus and danferous in this idea of revenge violence it seemed to be promoting. I don't think looking back i was the intended audience for this at the end of the day but I'm sure that there are those who will love this for the message and scenes it contains.

I just couldn't gel with the melodramatic teenage style of this novel and unfortunately I couldn't finish it. This is merely my personal taste and no criticism of the novel.

This was fantastic book to kickoff my new year with. Macbeth meets the #MeToo movement where everyone gets their just desserts - Shakespeare style. Brimming with magic and curses, the vivid imagery of Foul is Fair overflows from every paragraph giving you a sense of the eerie and the supernatural right in the home of the jocks and the flock-girls.  I would highly recommend this electrifying thriller.