Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!
Technically, this review is an early review, but I didn’t get it as an ARC—I got it through the Amazon First Readers program. Usually, the books they offer aren’t my cup of tea, but The Monstrous Misses Mai seemed intriguing, and I never say no to free Kindle books. I love a good story about witches, and though it was predictable at times, The Monstrous Misses Mai was an entertaining addition to the wide subgenre!
Enjoy this week’s review!
The Monstrous Misses Mai – Van Hoang
Los Angeles, the early ’50s. Cordelia Mai Yin is down on her luck. Disowned by her parents and out of work, she’s been finding it difficult to find a place to stay. The apartment she eventually finds is cramped and occupied with three other roommates, but they have more in common than just their middle names. They all have unfulfilled dreams—and they all need a way to pay the rent. Callum, a mysterious friend of their landlord, knows it too. He offers them the deal of a lifetime, in exchange for a small sacrifice. Now, Cordi has a stable income and the job of her dreams, but the spells binding her reality are quickly beginning to fade, and the girls are running out of sacrifices to appease them…
TW/CW: body horror (mild), murder, loss of loved ones, manipulation
WARNING: this review contains some spoilers!
I received a free copy of this book as part of the Amazon First Reads program!
In the grand scheme of things, I don’t blame these characters—mostly Cordi—for turning to witchcraft to find a way to pay the rent. You gotta do what you gotta do in this economy. And in the economy of L.A. in the ’50s too, I guess.
The Monstrous Misses Mai was such an entertaining novel! I love a good book about witches, but I would say that it’s slightly different than your typical witch novel in that none of the main characters know what they’re doing with their magic. They’re all but sucked into a magical pyramid scheme that requires greater and greater sacrifices as it drains them little by little. Magic always comes at a cost: we all know that from the get-go, and this novel is no exception. But not knowing what exactly would happen to the women of the Mai residence was what kept the tension up for this novel for me. Although I wanted more out of the eventual climax (more on that later), it was a great narrative tactic to keep the reader guessing—not necessarily about where the plot would go, but about how things would go wrong for the characters.
Van Hoang has excellent prose, and it especially served this novel when it came to describing both L.A. in the ’50s. Her descriptions are so vivid and colorful—there wasn’t a single image in this novel that I couldn’t visualize in almost cinematic detail. The way that Hoang described both the cramped loft that the Mai women share and the glitz and glamor of the fashion world that Cordi finds herself entangled in made the world feel so much more tangible, and the divide between the double lives that the characters lived felt so much more fleshed out and tense as a result. Having such a stark contrast made the creeping feeling of dread for the characters even more palpable—with the magic that they were dabbling, the glamorous lives that they were leading would no doubt catch up to them.
The Monstrous Misses Mai focuses on four women (Cordi, Tessa, Silly, and Audrey), but we’re reading entirely from Cordi’s perspective. Cordi was a compelling enough character, and her struggles—both financial and magical—fueled the plot and pacing in a steady way. However, I wish I could say the same for the other characters. Tessa was next in terms of the most fleshed-out character, but for most of the novel, she only felt like Cordi’s confidante, and not the magical accomplice that she was supposed to be. Silly and Audrey were barely characterized at all—Silly was only seen in sparing glimpses, and what we got of Audrey was entirely one-dimensional; Audrey was the token no-nonsense, “guys, maybe it’s a bad idea to be messing around with forbidden magic” character, and all the resolution gave her was an “I told you so” [strikes pose with hand on hip] moment and no development whatsoever. I feel like this novel could have worked better as a multi-POV novel; if we got into the heads of all four of the Mai women, we could have gotten individual ideas for their specific stakes, risks, and transformations.
Remember what I said about not knowing about the magic? It worked for most of the novel, but when it came to the ending, I found myself wanting more. The resolution felt so predictable—they’re finally too many spells deep to reverse their magic, leaving them in a worse situation than they were before. For a little while, I almost thought it was going to resolve in some kind of tired “oh, women and their vanity hahaha, you know how chicks are” ending, but luckily, it’s 2024, so not to worry about that; I do appreciate that the blame was placed squarely on Callum for being the one who instigated a magical pyramid scheme and nearly stole their souls. However, I feel like there wasn’t a whole lot that was original about Hoang’s take on this kind of story. I expected there to be something strange about what the magic cost them or how their transformations occurred, but all we get is their (very mild) bodily deterioration and some lost fingernails/hair loss. Which, yeah, the fingernails were pretty gross, but I found myself wanting a kind of unique magical toll that it took—something otherworldly that would ultimately expose them. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it wasn’t the most memorable take on this kind of story.
All in all, a story of witchcraft and deception with memorable prose but not-so memorable twists. 3.5 stars!
The Monstrous Misses Mai is a standalone, and Van Hoang’s adult debut. Hang is also the author of the Girl Giant and the Monkey King series (Girl Giant and the Monkey King and Girl Giant and the Jade War) and the forthcoming middle grade novel Hidden Tails.
Today’s song:
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
The Bookish Mutant 