#AVA REID

[laundry-and-taxes]

The way 'feminist retellings' have become another name for multi-dimensional female characters being white-washed and reduced to misunderstood/wronged/abused woman who does conventionally evil things to protect herself/for the greater good will always make me want to hurl myself off of a cliff.

Often times, these retellings bear no respect for their original text, and simply write to be quoted on tumblr mood boards and praised by booktokers as 'subversive' and 'a new take on feminism.'

I need authors to stop writing feminist retellings until they understand that women can be

1. Evil

2. Ambitious

3. Cruel/unkind/selfish

And gender based violence against these women is not acceptable simply because of their actions. They do not need to be victims of earlier abuse, or extremely kind, or the chosen ones for violence perpetuated against them on the virtue of their gender to be condemned.

[meiodrame]

A Study In Drowning by Ava Reid

[aliteraryprincess]

What defines a romance? All scholars seem to converge on a single point: it is a story that must have a happy ending. And why is that? I say, it is because a romance is a belief in the impossible: that anything ends happily. For the only true end is death--and in this way, is romance not a rebuke of morality? When love is here, I am not. When love is not, I am gone. Perhaps a romance is a story with no end at all; where the end is but a wardrobe with a false back, leading to stranger and more merciful worlds.

Ava Reid, A Study in Drowning

[freckles-and-books]

“It began as all things did: a girl on the shore, terrified and desirous.”

[inspiredbyabook]

a study in drowning by ava reid

What is a mermaid but a woman half-drowned, What a selkie but an unwilling wife, What a tale but a sea-net, snatching up both From the gentle tumult of dark waves?

[deathsweetblossoms]

You don’t have to take up a sword. Survival is bravery too.

A Study In Drowning by @avasreid

(2023 favorite reads)

[themelodyofspring]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge

July 19 - By The Sea 🌊

[ekbelsher]

When I do art for other people, I usually send two or three pose options before I draw the whole scene, and they never pick my favourite, ain't it the way

[4rcanist]

- an acquaintance of drowning. -

[belle-keys]

Gothic Fantasy/Folk Horror Books: 10 Recommendations

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft

Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

Not Good For Maidens by Tori Bovalino

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by Tori Bovalino and others

[displayheartcode]

The danger was real. Effy and Angharad had both proven that, with their wits and their mirrors. The danger lived with her; perhaps it had been born with her, if the rest of the stories about changeling children were to be believed. The danger was as ancient as the world. But if fairies and monsters were real, so were the women who defeated them.

a study in drowning by ava reid

[laundry-and-taxes]

This novel was so horrible. I demand financial recompensation. Why was Malcolm a half English man named Lisander? Why was Lady Macbeth a teenage French girl?? Why are all Scottish men described as brutes who are dishonorable, violent, and misogynistic? Moreover, why is it even a retelling if the author has gone off the rails with characterization and plot and chosen to do whatever they wished with a brilliant play? Retellings have become a buzzword in the increasingly consumerist publishing industry for authors to drive up sales. They don't want to critically engage with the themes of the text they're meant to be retelling. They want to be praised for being subversive and feminist by people who haven't ever engaged with the original text.

I was even more disappointed because I enjoyed Reid's earlier novel 'Juniper and Thorn' but the issues I had with that novel were highlighted even more in this novel. Scenes of gratuitous sexual and physical violence piled upon each other which serve no purpose except for shocking the readers with half done characters who shame their original counterparts.

I need authors to stop writing feminist retellings. Madeline Miller I think you've done irreparable damage to retellings.

[gcantread]

Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid Endpaper illustrations by Mary Metzger

pretty endpapers 1/?

[shxpeshifterr]

[freckles-and-books]

These are three of my favorites reads this year, and they all feel like they’re in conversation with each other. Each deals with fairytales in ways that go beyond mere retellings, and each one has stunning prose that really made me fall in love.

[thirtythirdhalfbirthday]

"Your love cannot make me less of a monster."

Sevas lets out a breath. "I wouldn't presume my love could do such a thing. I would have you as you are, nothing less."

-Ava Reid, Juniper & Thorn (2022)

"So you are no mortal man. I have seen what mortal men can do. I prefer a monster that shows itself openly."

-Ava Reid, Lady Macbeth (2024)