And because the boys who tried to destroy her-prep school elites-are untouchable by the law or the justice system, Jade knows that revenge means murdering them herself. But violence, as they say, begets violence afterward, Jade cuts her hair and dyes it black, and she and her three best friends-her coven-vow revenge. Andrew’s Prep lacrosse players at a party on her sixteenth birthday.

In her slick, divisive sophomore novel, she revamps Macbeth as the contemporary scorched-earth story of Jade Khanjara, who is gang-raped by a group of St. Shakespeare knew it, and Hannah Capin does, too. But for men of a certain background, with certain privileges, violence has no consequence. The conversation grows more complex when race enters in-men of color, and especially Black men, are often victims of violence, and face much higher consequences for perpetrating it than white men. When women are given the opportunity to be violent, it’s often sexualized and on behalf of the male gaze (Nikita, Black Widow, the femme fatale-all play to the camera) or they’re monsters, and punishment is inevitable (Medusa, Lilith, Lady Macbeth). Slasher movies of the 1970s reacted to a growing cultural acceptance of women’s sexuality and autonomy by violently ripping apart female bodies onscreen. In crime fiction, women are, most often, the victims in superhero stories, they’re frigid. This is the pairing that’s given the most attention: it’s what’s in the headlines, what’s in our entertainment. When we think of violence and women, most of us probably tend to picture violence against women.

Foul is fair a novel