Content/Trigger Warnings (From the Author): sexual assault, rape culture, violence, abusive relationship, a suicide attempt, and a brief scene with transphobic bullying.

I read this book a few months ago and I still think about Jade. This books still haunts me. The book opens up with the aftermath of Jade being raped at a party she went to so she could celebrate her sweet sixteen. Something was slipped into her drink and it happens. Now she wants revenge on the boys who did it. It’s your modern day Macbeth story.

This book was intense like I knew it would be after reading the author’s note at the opening of this book. Be prepared to be filled with feminist rage. It’s brutally brilliant! If you’re into beautifully written dark unapologetic fiction this book is most definitely for you!!!

Thank you to Wednesday Books for my advance physical copy in exchange for my honest review!!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

All I can say is wow. This book has left me speechless. In here is everything - good vs. evil, victim vs. survivor, and the power of female love and friendship. Oh, and did I mention the parallels with Shakespeare? I could not put this book down, and it was a struggle to opt for sleep over finishing it in one night. Add this to your TBR pile right away.

WOW! Don’t you love coming across a book that takes you out of your comfort zone, is meticulously devious and perverse, and is unlike any other you’ve read before.. FOUL IS FAIR is THAT book. It’s one dark and twisted wild ride you can’t look away from. Needless to say I read this in a day!

*Sexual assault (not depicted), violence

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this arc with me in exchange for an honest review!

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy. This did not affect my rating.
*4/5*

Elle and her friends Mads, Jenny, and Summer are queens of their L.A. social circle. They’re rich and pretty. Elle celebrates her sweet sixteen by crashing a prep school party. That’s the night her entire life changes. She is roofied and raped. Her and her friends (aka her coven) are sworn to revenge. They will do anything for each other (“They are mine and I am theirs”), including to help plan and orchestrate murder.

Elle becomes Jade and transfers to St. Andrews Prep. She enmeshes herself with the group (who all either let this happen or participated in it…) Jade quickly gets accepted into the group and seduces Mack, a teammate of the golden boys of St. Andrews. Jade is a master puppeteer with Mack, just pulling all the right strings to get him to do her bidding. One by one, they start to fall. Jade is actually diabolical. She never waivers or hesitates. She savours it right up until the very last page.

The writing was a little too flowery for me. It was super dark, but I found myself getting taken out of the story because the writing was just a little too over the top for me. Also, it was a little hard to believe the ages of the characters.

This book was compulsively readable, wanting to know who was the next to go down and how it was going to happen. It was dark and twisted and disturbing in the best way, verging and almost toppling over the edge of being too much.

As a Macbeth retelling, I think the author nailed it. I loved the Coven, and want to read more about them.

“Fair is Foul, Foul is Fair."

Foul is Fair was SO MUCH FUN. Super dark, brutally violent, and all about revenge though. Lots of blood in this book. It was a teen retelling of Macbeth and a revenge fantasy for all the girls who’ve been wronged by guys who get away with doing wrong because of who they are.
It was like a mash up of Macbeth, Cruel Intentions, Mean Girls, and the witches from American Horror Story: Coven and Apocalypse.
The writing was superb. I felt like everything was over the top, but in a way that made it fun and exciting, like how a horror movie can be funny but still totally serious. I don’t know that a girl could get a boy she just met to kill all of his friends for her out of love, but it worked in this book and we already know it’s a Macbeth retelling, so I just went with it. I was drawn in and had no choice but to buy in because it was so much fun to read.
I want this to be a movie so bad. It would be so amazing.
I definitely recommend this book.

This book will suck you in from page one and never let you go. It’s a fast-paced, hold on to your seat story, a modern-day gender-flipped Macbeth retelling. It’s everything I never knew I needed in a book.

.5/ 5 stars

Foul Is Fair is a contemporary YA retelling of Macbeth!

This is a Young Adult book. But I am not really sure what age the target audience would be. This story is about revenge. And it is quite violent.

The narrator is 16 year old Elle/Jade (1st person POV). She is assaulted. And she holds a group of guys responsible. She is in a gang of four friends. They want to make those who are guilty pay.

I feel bad for any girl who is attacked. But Jade and her friends were extremely unlikable. And maybe it would be fun to see the guys get what they deserve. But these girls were out for blood. I just found the whole thing to be very unbelievable and way too violent.

I did like a male character named Mack who befriended Jade. And I liked the idea of the story being a Macbeth retelling.

But Jade was just too vindictive and cold. And the revenge theme was just so over the top. There were a few wow moments. But overall it was too dark and disturbing for me.

*The assault mentioned above is not shown in the book. Also the violence is not overly graphic or gruesome.

Jade is a girl that was abused during a party. And she makes her life mission to make the boys involved in the rape pay back for what they did. She won’t stop until all of them pay for what happened. It’s a dark YA book. I understand her motives, but also feel that maybe she goes too far in her quest to revenge what happened.

Violent retelling of MacBeth mixed with Mean Girls and Cruel Intentions, this book will mess you up, in all the good ways. It is like reading Kill Bill but with Heathers, teenage girls taking revenge and not giving a crap.

Jade and her friends are celebrating sweet sixteen with glitter,vodka and short skirts.her hair is platinum for the first time and she wears contacts.tonight they are sirens.tonight they are going to st Andrews prep party. Jade washs her make up off after the party and cuts her hair short and dark.she still has bruises and scratch's on her. everyone used to call Jade Elle.Duncab,Duffy,Connie and Banks are the boys war is waged after. There's also mack. Intense read

Witty, biting, imaginative. Also completely and totally insane. Loved this story from start to finish.

On her “sweet sixteenth” birthday “Elle,” Khanjara flashed out into the night dressed to kill. She exuded glitz and glamour, the shortest of skirts, lipstick, green contact lenses, and hair dyed platinum blonde. With her are her best friends, her coven, Mads, Summer, and Jennifer, all equally sharp. This night they will venture out to a party hosted by a wilder set of affluent teens from the exclusive St. Andrew‘s Prep. They are welcomed in.

Later “Elle” will awaken in a bed of white sheets after being drugged and gang-raped by Duncan, captain of the St. Andrews lacrosse team, and his wolves, Duffy, Connor, and Banks. She sheds no tears. Before the night is over “Elle” is gone, along with the long blonde hair and the green contact lenses, in her place is Jade, hair dyed “Revenge” black and cut short with a knife. Jade will enter St. Andrews with one goal in mind, to kill all those who raped her and destroy the lives of their accomplices utterly. She will use her coven and manipulate her parents to achieve her ends. And for Jade, the ends justify any means whatever. Disguise and lies are just the beginning.

Obviously, “Foul is Fair” is a modern cautionary tale. It is well written, and the story, while highly unlikely, is impressive. What it lacks is a character that even comes close to being likable. If you can enjoy reading a book while simultaneously hoping that every actor in it goes straight to hell, then this is the novel you have been waiting for.

I received an eGalley of this novel from Wednesday Books, New York, via NetGalley in exchange for this review.

The writing style of this book is very poetic and at times doesn’t feel modern at all. Once I got used to the style I really started falling in love with this book. The story is definitely fantastical, which isn’t surprising considering it’s a retelling on Macbeth. I loved the Gossip Girl series while I was growing up and this felt very much like that if Shakespeare had written those. All in all it’s great though I’m not sure it feels very modern regardless of the presence of modern day technology and trends throughout.

"I can take every single thing they tried to ruin and make it mine again. Make it a weapon that cuts them down and bleeds them dry."

Foul is Fair is described as a contemporary feminist retelling of Macbeth.
While the main plot of this book is interesting and well executed, I couldn't get into the writing style and felt that for something set in our current time and described as contemporary it still felt very much like a play and melodramatic. The dialogue is very poetic and metaphorical to the point that some sentences don't make sense anymore.
Additionally, the are multiple instanced in which Jade, our main character, does things to go through with her plan that were problematic in my eyes.

Trigger Warnings for sexual assault (not depicted), rape culture and violence. Additionally, the book includes an abusive relationship, a suicide attempt and a brief scene with transphobic bullying.

I received an eARC of this book by Wednesday Books in exchange for an honest review

Absolutely loved this book! it contained the great amount of revenge, goriness and it was simply fabulous. As a lover of Shakespeare and Macbeth, I definitely recommend this.

It took me a little while to figure out how I feel about this story. On one hand, I am here for revenge and girl power. But on the other hand, I wasn't prepared for the level of camp in this book. So that was a slight factor for me, but if I'm prepared for campy goodness, I love it!

This is very reminiscent of Heathers, but there's obviously a whole lot more, uh, rape culture in this one. Elle, well...Jade, seeks revenge on the lacrosse boys who spiked her drink. Much like in the original story of Macbeth, she has her coven to aid in setting the boys on a course of self-destruction that they won't see until the end.

On one hand, hell yes to seeing rapists get what they deserve, and yes to Jade being the one to do the work. But the rest of the girls in the book...almost feel like archetypes? Take Piper, for instance. She's ruthless, carries a fencing foil with her every day, and is just so...annoyingly catty. But Liliana, the former queen of St. Andrew's, is so close to being something absolutely wonderful and terrible, but falls a bit short.

There's some rep in the book, as Jade is (I think) Indian, Summer and Jenny are queer, and Mads, lovely Mads, is trans. But I feel like we don't really get a true grasp of these characters, even Jade. I even forgot she wasn't white.

I think this would be an amazing film, but it fell a bit short as a book for me. I give Foul is Fair 4 out of 5 crows.

This is clever and engaging and kind of exhausting.

Honestly, I mostly loved it. I loved our main character and was kind of in awe at how the author took the original play, made it so very modern and relevant, yet still kept true to the heart of the original. I loved our coven and adored Lilia.

But it really was exhausting.

The primary emotion in the book is rage, mixed with a little wistfulness. And rage, righteous though it is, is a hard emotion to have on every single page.

I took breaks reading this. I literally stopped at 60% and read something else before returning to it.

Yet, I really liked it.

I do recommend it. I just caution you that may need to take it in small doses.

*ARC Provided by Net Galley

Book Info
Hardcover, 336 pages
Expected publication: February 4th 2020 by Wednesday Books
ISBN 1250239540 (ISBN13: 9781250239549)
Edition Language English
Series Foul Is Fair #1
Other Editions (8)
Source:Netgalley EARC
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BOOK BLURB

Elle and her friends Mads, Jenny, and Summer rule their glittering LA circle. Untouchable, they have the kind of power other girls only dream of. Every party is theirs and the world is at their feet. Until the night of Elle’s sweet sixteen, when they crash a St. Andrew’s Prep party. The night the golden boys choose Elle as their next target.

They picked the wrong girl.

Sworn to vengeance, Elle transfers to St. Andrew’s. 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. Golden boys beware: something wicked this way comes.

My Thoughts


Welcome to a world that embraces elitism, entitlement, immorality and privilege.

The mantra ”Foul is Fair and Fair is Foul” is explored to its fullest by the four teen girls at the heart of this story.

From a very young age Elle, Mads, Jenny and Summer have proven their loyalty to each other. Many times in ways that are beyond the boundaries of legal behavior but in all those years the four have never been truly tested until now.

This story takes them to the limit and beyond thanks to one stupid night that changes things forever, for not only them but for an entire group at St. Andrews as well.

Not your everyday Mean Girls or Normal Revenge Tale this one goes beyond that in a way that is very easy to read but at the same time hard because of context for the story content, which part I did love even while its context was uncomfortably pushing boundaries very realistically.

While engrossed had no real trouble digesting or reading it from start to finish, even during the parts that made me uncomfortable here and there.

Favorite part is the 4 teen girls themselves and although Jade is the main focus she is not the only outstanding character of this book for me.

I felt the end did not justify the means but was satisfied that revenge served cold proved to not be all about getting even but also about friendship as well as learning ones own limits.

In Jade and her friends case apparently those limits are pretty sky high but to them whatever the cost their particular brand of justice seems to be worth any consequences to their actions.

As the statement included in the books blurb says ”Something wicked this way comes!”

[EArc from Netgalley]
On every book read as soon as it is done and written up for review it is posted on Goodreads and Netgalley, once released then posted on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles as well.

Wow! This book is dark and devious, it's fierce and unafraid, it's smart and unapologetic. The writing was vivid and cinematic, the world vibrant and colorful. Certainly this book is not for everyone. There are major trigger warnings. It is definitely not a sweet and sappy HEA. But if you are looking for an intelligent well written book with characters who are strong and loyal, indulge in this dark and twisty novel.

Foul is Fair is a powerful Macbeth retelling about the #MeToo era but focuses on what I believe so many survivors wish they could do: take revenge. I was so easily swept up into this bloody tale about murder, retribution and fierce female friendships.

The novel begins with the aftermath of a brutal gang rape that Jade is subjected to after celebrating her sweet sixteen at a house party. Seven people worked together to ensure Jade had something slip into her drink that made her vulnerable and so that a group of boys could take advantage of her. She wants revenge on all of the people who had a part to play. Together, Jade and her coven of friends do just that: they plan to infiltrate the school the boys attend, sow distrust among them, and then murder them all. But that's not all: they need a patsy, a boy they can blame it on after the gang is dead: a boy called Mack who Jade finds herself falling for even as she manipulates him.

Foul is Fair discusses the insidious impact of rape culture in an unsettling yet compelling way. Hannah Capin explains that, when it comes to rape, it is not just the rapist who is to blame: it is also the system of people that help uphold his behaviour and, at times, even physically help him. From the drug dealer who sells him the date-rape drug, to the person who looks the other way when they see him pour it in a drink, to the person who hands her the drink, to the guy who stands watch at the door so no one will know what is happening behind it -- all are complicit, and this book helps the reader understand that. 

This book is also about trauma and the ways in which survivors weigh their need for lawful justice versus their desire for revenge. Jade obviously goes down the revenge road, along with frightening prophecies and lots of murder. Her coven are all such amazing characters who back Jade up no matter what. The three girls, one of whom is trans and the other two in a burgeoning sapphic relationship, are the epitome of friendship goals -- they are ride or die for each other, and in this case, it's very much die.

Foul is Fair is a book I wholly recommend to young adult and adult readers alike. At times, this book is very hard to read but I would say we need more books like this. Books that show that, even if something devastating like this has happened to you, you are still just as powerful and amazing as you were the day before. (Just please don't murder anyone.)