Friday, May 13, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska

 



The Midnight Girls is a new young adult fantasy novel by Alicia Jasinska.  Set in a world based upon 19th Century Poland, the story follows three girls who were taken in by monstrous witches as little children, and turned into monsters the Witches can send out to collect the hearts of Princes for them to consume.  Two of the girls, Marynka/Midday and Zosia/Midnight, develop an unknowing rivalry as they each race to beat the others to the same human hearts, despite the two never meeting in person....until one mission, to take the heart of a pureblooded Prince, results in all three girls being sent on the same mission, meeting each other, and discovering feelings for each other they could never have imagined.  

It's a sapphic YA tale that works pretty well honestly, with its Polish setting providing thematic background for the struggle between love, family, and one's own desires, and allowing the characters' journeys to play out strongly on page.  Still this is all about the characters and Marynka and Zosia are both done very well as they struggle to deal with their rivalry, their sudden friendship that develops into more, and their own wants, with Zosia desiring freedom above all else and Marynka searching for approval/acceptance from an abusive parental figure.  It's not a book that really ever hits greatness, and the third girl Beata often seems like an afterthought, but it's a very enjoyable sapphic tale about fighting for freedom to choose your own destiny, your own desires, and your own loves....even if you are a monster girl.  

Trigger Warnings:  Abuse - Marynka's parental figure, the Red Jaga, is physically and emotionally abusive, and a large part of her struggle is her attempts to win the "competition" with Zosia so that she can get the love and approval she craves, but will never get from such a figure.  Zosia's parental figure is also emotionally abusive from her isolation of Zosia, but it's never as strongly on page.  These themes are handled well, with Marynka's development ending with her realizing she will never get that approval, and the story never overdoes it, but still it may be hard for some - even if the direct physical abuse never occurs on page.  

---------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------
Marynka was adopted as a young child by the Red Jaga, a deadly witch who feasts on the hearts of Princes in the country of Lechija.  There the Red Jaga granted her the power to become a monster - known as Midday - a monster who will serve the Red Jaga by clawing out human hearts on which to feed.  But whenever Marynka fails to get a heart, the Red Jaga punishes her harshly....and Marynka often fails, thanks to the efforts of the mysterious Midnight, the monster that serves the witch known as the Black Jaga.  And so while Marynka tries to lick her wounds, and to take the companionship of Beata - a girl adopted by the nicer White Jaga and turned into the monster "Morning" - she finds herself obsessed with defeating Midnight, despite never ever seeing the girl in the flesh.  

And so when Marynka and Beata are sent to the capital city to devour a Prince known to be the purest heart of all, Marynka knows that Midnight will be sent as well, and she knows that this is her chance to prove herself the best of the three monster girls.  Still, Marynka finds it nice to have some fun flirting and talking with the girl they travel with, a cute girl named Zosia.  

Since being adopted by the Black Jaga, Zosia has been raised in pure darkness, all alone, stuck being the servant of an evil witch.  And so, she wants something more, and has begun taking hearts for her own power, so as to become strong enough to fight off the witch and gain her own freedom.  And so she sees the task to obtain the pure hearted Prince's heart as the final step in obtaining her freedom.  But when she meets Marynka, she finds something she never expected: companionship, friendship, and feelings towards another she never thought possible.  

But when Marynka and Zosia realize who the other is, they find themselves struggling with their feelings, especially as only one of them can obtain the heart....assuming they can get past the companions of the Prince, who is thought of as the country's last hope for freedom of its own....
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The Midnight Girls is the story of a trio of sapphic monster girls, but most particularly two such monster girls, Marynka and Zosia, both of whom have been adopted into pretty dreadful situations.  For Marynka, that is a directly abusive relationship, with the Red Jaga physically punishing her for her failures - abuse that makes Marynka desperate to prove herself worthy of the Red Jaga's love and desperate to beat her rival in Midnight.  For Zosia, its a relationship that is emotionally abusive, one which isolates her in darkness and keeps her from forming relationships, and makes her lonely and desperate for freedom (it doesn't help that unlike Marynka, she seems to remember a little bit of her pre-witch childhood).  And so both girls don't have any problems being monstrous and taking the hearts of a Prince, even a prince who is clearly good, because they both have things that desperately drive them. 

Of course all that gets upset by the two of them getting to know each other as fun companions and actual persons they might actually like and care for on the journey to the City and beyond.  And so, the two of them continue to compete with one another for the Prince, getting in trouble and danger as the Prince is guarded by loyal retainers and his own beloved (more on that below), but keep finding their acts putting the other in danger....and find each one of them wavering at the thought they might cause such serious harm.  Yeah this is kind of expected and the book is hardly subtle about their feelings for one another (and it is a slow slow slow burn melting of feelings), but it works so really well. 

It's helped a bit more by the setting, 19th century Poland (well a fantasy version), in which the Country's hopes fall on a Prince who might raise the country against the neighbors who have occupied it....a Prince whose greatest rival is his cousin, a cousin he once loved but who betrayed him to help the cousin's own father.  And so both the Prince and the Cousin struggle with their feelings towards one another, and the family sides they're supposed to be on that are supposed to push them in conflict - just like Zosia and Marynka.  The parallel works really well, and the setting pushes the two pairings together enough to really make things work.  

Still, not everything works here.  The third girl, Beata, has a crush on Marynka that only matters for one moment....and then winds up having no impact on events after that, even when it should cause bigger ramifications.  And while the setting of Poland works really well, it deals oddly with the idea of religion: All three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) are namechecked here and treated as if they're in harmony (with Jewish and Christian characters being side by side) and "Divine Magic" being a thing but not seemingly related to any religion, which just seems weird and ahistorical as compared to everything else about the setting.  But that might just bother me because well, I'm Jewish and find such things interesting and find the harmony here kind of hard to believe and distracting.  

Still, The Midnight Girls is an entertaining and well done young adult sapphic fantasy story, and if you're looking for that - and a lot of people likely are - this will definitely satisfy.  So worth your time.  

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