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Book Review: The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska

The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska

Sourcebooks Fire, 2022

ISBN-13: 978-1728209753

Available: Hardcover, paperback, audiobook, Kindle edition.

Buy:   Bookshop.org   |  Amazon.com

 

 

The Midnight Girls takes place in a fantasy kingdom based on the Kingdom of Poland at the end of the 18th century, which was torn apart by wars with Russia, Lithuania, and Poland.

 

Three sister witches terrorize the forest, each with a servant girl who desperately wants to please them. Black Jaga’s servant is Zosia, with the power of Midnight. Red Jaga’s servant is Marynka, with the power of Midday. White Jaga’s servant is Beata, with the power of Morning. The girls compete to seize the hearts of princes for their witches. Zosia, hidden away, is most successful. Marynka is desperately in competition with her as she is punished when she fails and receives affection when she succeeds. Beata quietly claims the spoils while Marynka is distracted. The descriptions of the servant girls’ powers and especially of their literally ripping hearts out of people”s bodies were really hard for me to read.

 

All three girls are sent to the city during Karnaval season to claim the pure heart of Prince Josef, a source of powerful magic when eaten. In their competition, Marynka and Zosia inadvertantly keep saving the prince in order to gain the opportunity to claim his heart. It would be funny but it is deadly serious. In spite of their antipathy, they develop a close connection. Zosia plans to run away after taking this last heart and asks Marynka to come with her.

 

Prince Josef wants his kingdom to rebel and fight the tsarina of Rusja in order to preserve Lechija’s national identity and freedom from its oppressors, while the king is tired of fighting and willing to make concessions. His life is complicated by the return to court of Kajetan, his closest friend, who supported his family and turned against him on the battlefield. Both Zosia and Marynka and Josef and Kajetan harbor strong and contradictory feelings for one another. Josef and Kajetan’s story had unexplored potential. Marynka and Zosia feel more like they are characters from a folktale, and as one would expect in a folktale, are relatively one-dimensional. Their rivalry and romance are the primary focus of the story, so the political situation Josef and Kajetan were navigating, while intriguing, didn’t get much attention. The Midnight Girls has a similar feel in places to Katherine Arden’s.The Bear and the Nightingale, but that book balances these elements better.

 

This was a clever premise with great world building, and it wasn’t an easy book to read. Regardless of their home environment or your investment in the story, these girls really are monsters. They don’t try to justify their actions. It is really something that Jasinska has humanized them.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on August 12, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: The Memory Eater by Rebecca Mahoney

Cover art for The Memory Eater by Rebecca Mahoney

The Memory Eater by Rebecca Mahoney

Razorbill, 2023

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593524602

Available: Hardcover ( Bookshop.org )

 

Whistler Beach in Maine is a magical place, but frightening for those who know the truth. When was the last time Maine wasn’t like this? Stephen King didn’t invent the spookiness and weirdness of the state– it’s been there forever. Rebecca Mahoney has unchained the dark charms of the coastal region and churned out a beautiful storm of a YA novel that is tough to categorize. At different points, it could be considered horror, fantasy, thriller, or family drama. All fit, and that’s the charm of The Memory Eater

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Seventeen-year-old Alana Harlow has an interesting job. While she should be planning for college and enjoying the hell that is high school, she’s inherited the Harlow business. Every day, she treks down to the cave on the beach and helps people lose chosen memories– and makes sure they emerge alive.

 

Inside that cave resides a unique monster. The Memory Eater was brought into the country two hundred years ago by the Harlow family. Instead of killing the massive beast, they imprisoned her with a dark magic deep within the cavern. What does the creature look like? Two stories tall, or long, depending on the situation, and clever. Her flesh is covered in the faces of the memories she devours, and her own memories might not be her own. She speaks in riddles, hungry, aching to be filled with the lives of others. Mahoney has created a masterpiece of a beast here.

 

Alana guides guests into the cave to have unpleasant memories taken from them, while protecting the rest. The business keeps Whistler Beach bustling. The family business is a tricky, twisted history. Her own life is a mess, too, navigating romance and friendship while figuring out how to handle the weight of the job.

 

Then one day, the Memory Eater escapes, along with a bunch of secrets. The holes in Alana’s memory become crucial bits of the puzzle to survival and her family history.

 

The writing is lean and deceptively simple. Mahoney nails teen relationships and small town life. There’s a lot to digest in these pages, yet she has penned a novel that flows easy, allowing the horrors and relationships to build in waves.

 

Recommended.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on May 10, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: The Raven by Dani Lamia with Gwendolyn Kress

 

Cover art for The Raven by Dani Lamia with Gwendolyn Kress

The Raven by Dani Lamia

Level 4 Press, Inc.

ISBN-13: 978-1933769707

Available: Preorder paperback, Kindle edition, MP3 ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

I received a .pdf ARC of this from the publisher.

 

Rebekah is bullied horrendously at school, mostly cruel jokes originating with popular Coralie Renner and her friends. Things get much worse when Beka accidentally spills a drink on her skirt at a party and Coralie nicknames her “piss bitch.” Not only does she face name calling and humiliation but someone pees in her locker, destroying her textbooks, clothes, and sketchbook.

 

As a young child Beka had a dream friend, the Raven, who eventually stopped visiting but left her with a special edition of the works of Poe. She starts dreaming of him and carrying the book again. This time her dreams are vengeful. The students who have been tormenting her begin to appear one at a time as she watches, waking up the next day with real physical damage- a broken tooth or arm, hair pulled out in a clump. They claim the damage is from accidents but all remember bad dreams.

 

This wouldn’t normally be concrete enough for a police investigation, but after parents insist, a cop is sent to investigate, who happens to be Beka’s neighbor, Mike Wilson. Mike is a couple years older than Beka and has a crush on her. Despite her being a potential suspect and it being completely inappropriate, they start dating.

 

Meanwhile things with the Raven are escalating inside Beka’s magical Poe-inspired dreams. She asks the Raven, who has stepped things up and is now killing, to stop, and he refuses. She realizes he is not merely a dream creature, but a person who can invade dreams who has taken a personal interest in her.

 

I liked the premise a lot, but I felt like the story started to go off the rails with the police investigation and other plot threads once we got closer to the end.

 

Contains: bullying, brief description of rape, scenes of torture and murder.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on January 8, 2023 by , Reply
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