A review by emmaskies
Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino
ARC provided by Page Street YA for review
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for Goodreads
Not Good for Maidens is a modern, queer retelling of Christina Rosetti's The Goblin Market that takes place within two timelines. In the present, Lou's young aunt/best friend Neela has been taken by the Market all the way across the ocean in her family's ancestral home in the UK; Eighteen years ago, Lou's aunt May was the one held by the Market while her mother went in to save her, and whatever happened back then was enough to drive them from the country and never speak of it again, to the point of hiding Lou's magical heritage from her.
What I think this book did well:
- The Goblin Market itself, to an extent. - I was pleasantly surprised by the level of body horror and gore in a YA book. The goblins themselves are an interesting bunch and the market reads just as atmospherically intense as I'd expect after Tori Bovalino's previous book, The Devil Makes Three.
- The Dual Timelines. - I think the timelines worked well against each other in pacing and there were only a couple instances where I wanted to yell at the book to "go back, go back!" when it switched over. A small amount of that I think is good, keeping me invested in waiting for it to switch back as long as the current one still engages me. (I have seen other reviews say that the timelines are difficult to differentiate at times because they're pretty similar. It seems that most of these I saw were audiobook reviews, so this might be a book where the physical is a better read than the audio.)
What didn't work quite as well for me:
- The Goblin Market itself, to an extent. - But you just said up above- I know, I know. While the horrors of the Market are well written, what the book fails to communicate to me, as the reader, is why someone would be lured in to this monstrous place not just once, but multiple times in a row. I spent a lot of my time in May's timeline not understanding why she went in the first place and why she ever went back to the horror show. This is where the book attempts to use the sapphic star-crossed romance with a goblin girl, but it's instalove and in my mind still fails to show me the why of it all. This was the biggest issue for me through the entire book. If I can't understand why a character did the thing that started the entire plot, that's going to sit with me for the whole book.
- The familial relationship between Lou and Neela. - This is a pretty nitpicky thing, but I kept waiting for it to become apparent why the author chose to make Lou and Neela same-age Niece/Aunt instead of something much easier to explain like cousins or family friends, but it never did. There's no exploration of the sisterly relationship between Neela and Lou's mom and other aunt, so it seems like an unnecessary complication that is consistently the tripping point in explaining the book to others.
So, in the end, 3.5 stars. Atmospherically good (Tori Bovalino writes a spooky atmosphere like nobody's business) but somewhat lacking in character intent.
CW for moments of intense gore/body horror
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for Goodreads
Not Good for Maidens is a modern, queer retelling of Christina Rosetti's The Goblin Market that takes place within two timelines. In the present, Lou's young aunt/best friend Neela has been taken by the Market all the way across the ocean in her family's ancestral home in the UK; Eighteen years ago, Lou's aunt May was the one held by the Market while her mother went in to save her, and whatever happened back then was enough to drive them from the country and never speak of it again, to the point of hiding Lou's magical heritage from her.
What I think this book did well:
- The Goblin Market itself, to an extent. - I was pleasantly surprised by the level of body horror and gore in a YA book. The goblins themselves are an interesting bunch and the market reads just as atmospherically intense as I'd expect after Tori Bovalino's previous book, The Devil Makes Three.
- The Dual Timelines. - I think the timelines worked well against each other in pacing and there were only a couple instances where I wanted to yell at the book to "go back, go back!" when it switched over. A small amount of that I think is good, keeping me invested in waiting for it to switch back as long as the current one still engages me. (I have seen other reviews say that the timelines are difficult to differentiate at times because they're pretty similar. It seems that most of these I saw were audiobook reviews, so this might be a book where the physical is a better read than the audio.)
What didn't work quite as well for me:
- The Goblin Market itself, to an extent. - But you just said up above- I know, I know. While the horrors of the Market are well written, what the book fails to communicate to me, as the reader, is why someone would be lured in to this monstrous place not just once, but multiple times in a row. I spent a lot of my time in May's timeline not understanding why she went in the first place and why she ever went back to the horror show. This is where the book attempts to use the sapphic star-crossed romance with a goblin girl, but it's instalove and in my mind still fails to show me the why of it all. This was the biggest issue for me through the entire book. If I can't understand why a character did the thing that started the entire plot, that's going to sit with me for the whole book.
- The familial relationship between Lou and Neela. - This is a pretty nitpicky thing, but I kept waiting for it to become apparent why the author chose to make Lou and Neela same-age Niece/Aunt instead of something much easier to explain like cousins or family friends, but it never did. There's no exploration of the sisterly relationship between Neela and Lou's mom and other aunt, so it seems like an unnecessary complication that is consistently the tripping point in explaining the book to others.
So, in the end, 3.5 stars. Atmospherically good (Tori Bovalino writes a spooky atmosphere like nobody's business) but somewhat lacking in character intent.
CW for moments of intense gore/body horror