Rating: 
Summary: It could have been so much better
Review: A friend recommended The Third Witch to help with my research for my production of Macbeth. I must say the concept of the book was intriguing, but the pay-off was less than satisfying. I am not going to write a short synopsis as most of the other reviews have one. Instead, I want to talk about my major problems with the book. The book is written entirely in the first-person. This may not be a bad thing for a lot of people, but I found it impossible to like Gilly until the fairy-tale ending. I found her annoying, selfish and too dogmatic and I feel had she be written in the third-person (like the loveable supporting characters especially Pod, Lisette and Fleance) it would have been easier to like and even care for her. Putting Gilly at the center of the story meant she had to be present in every scene for the story to move on. That placed her in some of the most unlikely places in the Macbeth plot, and at many left me screaming at the page.
Don't get me wrong, I think this was a brave choice for a debut and at times it worked wonderfully but I felt no emotional connection to Gilly. In a book like this, written in the first-person, the reader needs to feel connected to the subject. If that doesn't happen, the rest of the story falls-flat, and I'm sorry to say this one fell hard.
Rating:
Summary: It could have been so much better
Review: A friend recommended The Third Witch to help with my research for my production of Macbeth. I must say the concept of the book was intriguing, but the pay-off was less than satisfying. I'm not going to write a short synopsis as most of the other reviews have one. Instead, I want to talk about my major problems with the book. The book is written entirely in the first-person. This may not be a bad thing for a lot of people, but I found it impossible to like Gilly until the fairy-tale ending. I found her annoying, selfish and too dogmatic and I feel had she be written in the third-person (like the loveable supporting characters especially Pod, Lisette and Fleance) it would have been easier to like and even care for her. Putting Gilly at the center of the story meant she had to present in every scene for the story to move on. That placed her in some of the most unlikely places in the Macbeth plot - and at many left me screaming at the page.Don't get me wrong, I think this was a brave choice for a debut and at times it worked wonderfully but I felt no emotional connection to Gilly. In a book like this, written in the first-person, the reader needs to feel connected to the subject. If that doesn't happen, the rest of the story falls-flat, and I'm sorry to say this one fell hard.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth reading
Review: Although this book has its flaws (namely placing Gillian at the heart of every single thing that happens to Macbeth) this book was still definitely worth reading. I loved the descriptions of medieval Scotland, and the castles and the lives of the kitchen staff. It inspired me to reread Macbeth which I hadn't done for at least 10 years, and it really served to "flesh out" the story. I recommend it highly--especially to any Shakespeare fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Rich, dark, fascinating
Review: An easy, entertaining read. Emotional at times, although I found the ending a bit *too* triumphant. However, if you can allow yourself to just enjoy it, without rolling your eyes, you may find yourself cheering (albeit silently) at the outcome, the almost fairy-tale like ending. But why not, right? :) I had to switch gears to make myself feel that way. None of this took away from my experience with the story. I enjoyed Ms. Reisert's writing style very much, a great twist on Macbeth. I love hearing stories told from a woman's perspective. Actually, this book would make a *great* movie. Cheers~
Rating:
Summary: A Shakespeare lovers opinion
Review: As a former student of Rebecca Reisert's and an avid Shakespeare fan I would love nothing more than to get revenge on my former teacher by criticizing Reisert's imagining of the Bards Tragedy MacBeth, but, after reading the novel, I was completely unable to find any real faults. The writing is immersing, the story is immaginative and the characters, while sometimes over-the-top, are always well crafted. As someone who has studied MacBeth in detail, Reisert's telling of the story from the the point of view of one of the weird sisters (the three witches of MacBeth fame) never fails to please with its explanations for the fantastical events described in MacBeth and the central characters ability to always be present for some of the most critical moments in the play. A knowledge of MacBeth isn't required to enjoy this novel, however, it certianly adds to the story. I would highly recomend this book to all readers.
Rating:
Summary: The fascinating "other side" of one of my favorite plays
Review: First of all, I love _Macbeth_. (I'm about the only person I know who feels that way, but I do. ) Needless to say, when I discovered _The Third Witch_ , the story of one of the three Weird Sisters, during an aimless ramble through a bookstore, I snapped it up immediately. When I got home, I started reading right away, and didn't put the book down until I had finished itm well into the wee hours. I really, really like this. The witch of the title is Gilly, an emotionally wounded teenage girl, whose world was ravaged by Lord Macbeth when she was a child. Orphaned, Gilly was raised by the eccentric herb-women Nettle and Mad Helga, considered by the local townspeople to be witches. Gilly, feeling like she has finally grown up and needs to seek her destiny, tries to enlist her guardians' help in revenging herself upon Macbeth. To bring Macbeth down, Gilly needs to know more about him, and so she disguises herself as a boy and goes to work in the lord's kitchens. She initially focuses on her quest for vengeance to the exclusion of all else, leaving hurt feelings in her wake, but eventually she begins to care for others. This disturbs her; such weakness can only sabotage her mission. Will Gilly learn that there is more to life than revenge? Reisert says that she sacrificed historical accuracy in favor of faithfulness to Shakespeare's play. Frankly, I never noticed any anachronisms. This is a good historical novel, as far as I can tell, filled with realistic detail about kitchens, herbs, warfare, and what-have-you. Add a pleasant but unobtrusive dash of feminism, and you get a darn good book.
Rating:
Summary: The fascinating "other side" of one of my favorite plays
Review: First of all, I love _Macbeth_. (I'm about the only person I know who feels that way, but I do. ) Needless to say, when I discovered _The Third Witch_ , the story of one of the three Weird Sisters, during an aimless ramble through a bookstore, I snapped it up immediately. When I got home, I started reading right away, and didn't put the book down until I had finished itm well into the wee hours. I really, really like this. The witch of the title is Gilly, an emotionally wounded teenage girl, whose world was ravaged by Lord Macbeth when she was a child. Orphaned, Gilly was raised by the eccentric herb-women Nettle and Mad Helga, considered by the local townspeople to be witches. Gilly, feeling like she has finally grown up and needs to seek her destiny, tries to enlist her guardians' help in revenging herself upon Macbeth. To bring Macbeth down, Gilly needs to know more about him, and so she disguises herself as a boy and goes to work in the lord's kitchens. She initially focuses on her quest for vengeance to the exclusion of all else, leaving hurt feelings in her wake, but eventually she begins to care for others. This disturbs her; such weakness can only sabotage her mission. Will Gilly learn that there is more to life than revenge? Reisert says that she sacrificed historical accuracy in favor of faithfulness to Shakespeare's play. Frankly, I never noticed any anachronisms. This is a good historical novel, as far as I can tell, filled with realistic detail about kitchens, herbs, warfare, and what-have-you. Add a pleasant but unobtrusive dash of feminism, and you get a darn good book.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I am just about done with this book and I have to highly recommend. It did grab my attention in the first chapter and so far I've found it hard to put it down and get to work! The perspective of the girl puts a different slant on the story of Macbeth. I find it fascinating. I plan on purchasing for a friend for the holidays.
Rating: 
Summary: A great idea, but it just doesn't come across...
Review: Let me start by saying that when I saw this book in the store, I had to have it. The title and the cover art were seductive enough, but as soon as I found out that the premise surrounded the story of "Macbeth" from the point of view from one of the witches(!), well... it was sold.
The idea is fantastic! It starts as an account of the tale of Gilly, the third "witch" who haunts Macbeth and foretells his doom. Gilly swears revenge against Macbeth for reasons that are unveiled throughout the book. She has a mantra that she repeats throughout the novel: "I have made my life an arrow, and His heart is my home. I have made my life a blade, and His heart is my sheath." As the book progresses, Gilly abandons her life as a woman of the woods to throw herself into the surroundings of the Inverness castle (where she can be close to Macbeth and seek her revenge). The book progresses into a epic story of Gilly's hatred conflicting with her moral growth.
Now let me expound on what I did not like about this book. I was bored for the first two hundred pages. I kept waiting for something to happen. Quite a bit Does happen, but it's all in the last third of the book. Second, Gilly's mantra become annoying.. Gilly, herself, becomes annoying. She eventually grows up, but it happens so quickly that it's not really believable. It seemed to me, that Ms. Reisert painstakingly worked her way through the novel. Every conventional emotion that Gilly should feel is described to a "T." However, it seems a bit contrived. The novel seems more of an act of a need for accomplishment than a wonderful, seamless novel that harkens to the beauty of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
All told, the novel is a very good debut novel. I think that Ms. Reisert could become more comfortable with herself as a writer (novelist) and then she would convey even more realistic characters. The characters of Nettle, Pod, and even Lady Macbeth are wonderfully explored and seem to lead to a wonderful start toward Ms. Reisert's success as a writer. The idea was brilliant, but I wish things had tied together more fluidly. Overally, I would give this novel a 3.5 out of 5. A worthwhile read, but I recommend reading "Macbeth" first.
Rating:
Summary: A FAMILIAR STORY FROM A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW
Review: Rebecca Reisert's retelling of the story of Macbeth from the point of view of one of the three witches is an interesting approach to this familiar tale - and one that breathes quite a bit of life into a story that many readers, having it thrust upon them as 'required reading' in Shakespeare's version, should find refreshing. The author, in her note at the end of the novel, mentions that she realized early on in her research that she could either be faithful to history or to Shakespeare, but not to both. She chose the playwright as her touchstone, and her writing skills have drawn nicely upon the Bard's immortal sense of drama to produce a very entertaining, readable and absorbing book. The 'third witch' of the title is a young girl named Gilly - raised as a foundling by two older women who live in a hut in the forest. They have a great knowledge of nature - of the animals that live in the forest, as well as the medicinal (and other) uses of the herbs and plants that grow there - and are viewed with more than a little suspicion by the peasants who live nearby. Suspected witches are not tolerated well in mediæval Scotland - and for their own safety, they keep a low profile - but from time to time the villagers, desperate to care for or to cure their loved ones, seek them out for assistance. Gilly narrates the novel - and her burning need for revenge against 'Him' is made known to the reader right away, and often. 'He' turns out to be Lord Macbeth himself - and her reasons for the deep hatred that fills her and drives her on what she sees as her life's mission to bring about not only his downfall, but his death, are revealed deftly, and in due course. I won't spoil anything for any potential readers by going into them here. Suffice to say that she is determined and dedicated to such an extent that it frightens the two other women with whom she dwells. Her adventures in attempting to accomplish this end make up the bulk of the book - and the author's writing skills, as well as her research, make the experience a very involving one for the reader. Gilly is of an age that is a difficult time for any young person to bear - and the burden of her quest doesn't make it any easier for her to grow from a child into a young woman. She disguises herself as a boy for much of the story - and without becoming a feminist treatise, the novel subtly allows her to make some very relevant discoveries about the treatment of women in her society. She also comes to discover many things about herself - the rejection that she has felt for emotion (especially that of love for others, which she considers a hindrance) comes to be seen by her in a very different manner by the story's end. The concept of the novel interested me when I first read about it - and I'll admit that I was a little leery of how well it could be done - but I have to say that I was thoroughly entertained and pleased with the work.
|
