A review by bookedbymadeline
The Monstrous Misses Mai by Van Hoang

Did not finish book. Stopped at 26%.
I really wanted to like this one because I love historical settings/time periods and the concept sounded amazing! Sadly this didn’t work for me. 

The pacing was slow and writing overly descriptive. It took way too long to get to the magic, which is the whole point of the book? It’s meant to be dark and yet there’s no tension or suspense, the first 20% (75ish pages) is just minute details telling the reader everything instead of showing us. It’s also incredibly repetitive-
 I GET IT CORDI YOU DIDNT HAVE FRIENDS AND HATED THE SHOP BUT LEARNED TO LOVE IT AND NOW SEWING IS YOUR PASSION!! You don’t need to tell me every single chapter 🫠 

I DNFd this at 26% (about 92 pages) because after all this time I still couldn’t care less about the characters or what happens, just give me the dark magic and mistakes already