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caseythereader's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Thanks to Pride Book Tours and Page Street YA for the free copy of this book.
- NOT GOOD FOR MAIDENS is a queer, witchy, horrifying tale, and I was fully gripped by it.
- This book is gory and haunting, but also full of love and characters itching to prove themselves.
- Flipping back and forth between POVs in different timelines can be tricky, but I think Bovalino nailed it here. The parallel stories unspool quickly enough to keep you interested but not so quickly that things are revealed too soon: you'll find yourself mentally shouting at the characters to put the pieces together.
- The two POV characters, Lou and May, are ace and bi, respectively. I appreciated that challenges they might face due to their sexualities are mentioned, but it's not a book that's full of on the page queerphobia.
- NOT GOOD FOR MAIDENS is a queer, witchy, horrifying tale, and I was fully gripped by it.
- This book is gory and haunting, but also full of love and characters itching to prove themselves.
- Flipping back and forth between POVs in different timelines can be tricky, but I think Bovalino nailed it here. The parallel stories unspool quickly enough to keep you interested but not so quickly that things are revealed too soon: you'll find yourself mentally shouting at the characters to put the pieces together.
- The two POV characters, Lou and May, are ace and bi, respectively. I appreciated that challenges they might face due to their sexualities are mentioned, but it's not a book that's full of on the page queerphobia.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Blood, Confinement, Death, Body horror, Child death, Gore, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, and Violence
ladieswholunch's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Gore
siannas_second_library's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
Thank you to RB Mrdia and @netgalley for providing me with an audio ARC of this book.
Well this was a delightful surprise. I listened to this to have something short and different between Stormlight Archive audiobooks, not expecting that much from it, but the synopsis sounded interesting and it's queer so I thought 'why not'.
And I ended up really enjoying it!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Not Good For Maidens is a Fantasy-Horror YA book that's a loose retelling of Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti.
It makes a real effort to have a diverse cast of characters, the main romance is sapphic and one of the main characters is asexual, which I was not expecting. It's not plot-relevant but it's always incredibly nice to have on page representation.
The writing is really fluid and the book is really good at building atmosphere, it's appropriately dark and intimidating all the way through. It has not only Goblins but also Witches, and who doesn't like Witches in their book?
I also really liked the dual timeliness, although it was a little to easy to miss when it switches to the past/present when listening to it as an audiobook.
The magic system and the market could have done with a bit more explaining but overall this was really good.
I am not a native English speaker so while I thought the narrator did a good job and it was enjoyable to listen to this book, I can not say if the atempted (I think Yorkshire?) accent was well done.
The only reason that I didn't give it five stars is that I'm not really a horror fan, I just don't get anything out of it.
But I can say that this book has just catapulted The Devil Makes Three by Bovalino, which I've had on my shelf for a while, to the top of my tbr!
Well this was a delightful surprise. I listened to this to have something short and different between Stormlight Archive audiobooks, not expecting that much from it, but the synopsis sounded interesting and it's queer so I thought 'why not'.
And I ended up really enjoying it!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Not Good For Maidens is a Fantasy-Horror YA book that's a loose retelling of Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti.
It makes a real effort to have a diverse cast of characters, the main romance is sapphic and one of the main characters is asexual, which I was not expecting. It's not plot-relevant but it's always incredibly nice to have on page representation.
The writing is really fluid and the book is really good at building atmosphere, it's appropriately dark and intimidating all the way through. It has not only Goblins but also Witches, and who doesn't like Witches in their book?
I also really liked the dual timeliness, although it was a little to easy to miss when it switches to the past/present when listening to it as an audiobook.
The magic system and the market could have done with a bit more explaining but overall this was really good.
I am not a native English speaker so while I thought the narrator did a good job and it was enjoyable to listen to this book, I can not say if the atempted (I think Yorkshire?) accent was well done.
The only reason that I didn't give it five stars is that I'm not really a horror fan, I just don't get anything out of it.
But I can say that this book has just catapulted The Devil Makes Three by Bovalino, which I've had on my shelf for a while, to the top of my tbr!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and Kidnapping
Moderate: Body horror and Torture
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