2023 read #143: Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino.

Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino

345 pages

Published 2022

Read from November 30 to December 3

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

I’m glad I read Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market before I tried this book. Not only because it’s fun to read the inspiration before the retelling, but also because it helps smooth over Maidens’ biggest barrier to entry: making goblins sexy. When you think of menacing but sexy monsters, you think vampires, werewolves, mermaids, aliens, Mothman. Slotting goblins into that same category, without Rossetti’s Market fresh in memory, might have taken some adjustment. After Market, a glamoured goblin with green eyes and a sharp smile makes much more sense, as does the carnal allure of the market itself.

Bovalino writes well, building a believably beguiling world of temptation and illusion in the goblin market beneath York, a predatory dance where both witch and goblin desire each other’s blood. The protagonists of her dual timelines — seventeen year old Lou in the present day, and her aunt May eighteen years before — have pleasing depth, avoiding the usual YA clichés of bickering, short-fused teenagers.

Instead, we plunge into some different clichés: Lou and May’s family belong to a secret society of leather-clad badasses who train to battle with knives and witchcraft against sexy goblins in the underworld beneath the streets of the city! And one witch and one goblin yearn to break free of the rules and violence that dictate their lives! Maidens manages to temper the silliness that might suggest, maintaining enough dimension to stay fresh and interesting. In particular, as a long-time aficionado of British folk ballads, I enjoyed how the narrative utilized “Scarborough Fair,” “Death and the Lady,” and “Demon Lover.”

Another “interesting” aspect of this book is how, since the present-day chapters take place (presumably) in 2022, the eighteen-years-before flashback chapters must take place in 2004. While May and her goblin paramour Eitra dance in the underworld, the human clubs in York above would be blasting “Toxic.” Maybe that isn’t interesting so much as it makes me feel very, very old.