This was almost a DNF for me. The writing was slow at first as was the world building. The characters were intriguing so I was able to continue to reading to find out what happened to him.

This is a beautifully written book. It is very slow paced which worked well in some ways. I really enjoyed that this offered more world building, I enjoyed seeing how the magic system is tied into faith. I also loved the characters sharing stories and discussing the multiple versions of the stories and how that changes the message depending on who is telling the story and why. The slower pace gave a great weight to these moments and also provided some great character development as the characters come to better understand each other and change some of their opinions, However, there were also times when the pace started to pick up a little and then the shift back to the slower pace was a little frustrating. I also thought that so much of the character development was so carefully and skillfully done that the romance particularly at the beginning felt lacking by comparison. That said the settings and the world building are so wonderfully written it really draws you so fully into this world. I was so intrigued by the mix of magic and faith and the author letter at the end further explaining the real world influence was a nice touch.

Thank you to TOR publishing group and Netgalley for this ARC. I want to say upfront that I DNF’d this book at the 30% mark. I was really looking forward to reading this book ever since I started hearing about it. A sapphic dark fantasy woven with Jewish folklore sounded like such a interesting read, however this book fell flat for me.

In the first 5% I felt like the world building and character introduction was starting off at a good pace but it quickly started to feel like there was a lot of lore dumping all at once and I started to feel less and less interested or connected to the characters. I also felt a bit lost in the language being used and it really pulled me out of the story trying to remember what a particular word meant that was introduced only briefly a few pages before. Overall, I think the pacing was too slow, and the writing ending up feeling clunky between the heavily descriptive prose, and the lore dumping.

This book sadly just wasn’t for me, but I think if you enjoy folklore fantasy, and immersive description this might be worth checking out.

The Maiden and Her Monster, I think is another book fallen victim to improper marketing. I was expecting a really intriguing darker fantasy with a side of (sapphic) romance. The author’s writing was impressive, especially as this book is their debut.

I loved the atmosphere and the pretense of the book at the beginning. We get glimpses into culture, hardships the people are surviving, and interesting golem magic. However once the aspect of the story leaves the forest and what I thought the story was about, it changed drastically and read slower.

I did not feel like the romance between our two love interests made sense, I didn’t feel a draw between them. They hated each other and then the romance was rather instant after that.

The Maiden and Her Monster was quite the polarizing read for me. For example, the folklore in this book was beautiful; I was wholly enveloped in the culture and traditions of the Yahadi. Experiencing Malka's yearning for family connection and watching as she contrasted her current, violent reality with nostalgic memories of her youth, was heartbreaking and relatable. Atmospherically, the forest's brutality was visceral and the story leading up to entering the woods was engaging...and then they're in the forest and all the magic was lost.

Quickly, the plot moves away from a horrific forest and treacherous adventures and becomes a tale of espionage. So little time is spent with the forest that the rest of the book was unexpectedly jarring. I didn't want to be in the city running a coup against the government, and I most certainly did not want to be deus ex machina-d into a happily ever after. I wanted to be risking my life for the ones I love and experiencing a morally divisive romance.

In terms of romance, there was none. I simply do not understand how Malka and the Golem came to love each other. Malka was openly hostile with Nimrah for the entirety of the book. She was quite literally inflicting the same hate and intolerance upon the Golem as the Ozmini church was to her and her people. The irony made me irritable. They did not get along, there was no chemistry, and I ended the story disliking them both.

Overall, the lyrical prose and folklore does make reading The Maiden and her Monster worth it. I have my gripes with the story, but I do not regret finishing this book. It is a unique, dark fantasy utilizing traditions and lore from a severely underrepresented culture. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for a relatively easy-to-read fantastical tale.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for The Maiden and Her Monster by Maddie Martinez!

I think that this was marketed absolutely correctly for fans of Katherine Arden, Ava Reid, and Hannah Whitten. I loved the atmosphere and the way myth and folklore were woven through every part of the book. However, it took me more than half the book to get invested and I had a lot of issues with the pacing..

While I did like the plot and the history, I thought the characters were a little bit flat. The banter and the dialogue were decent. I actually did think there was good chemistry between Nimrah and Malka but it sort of felt like a switch flipped and it became love without enough depth for me to be convinced about the abrupt change in feelings. I love enemies to lovers, but it was just too much hate and trauma to get over so quickly. I think if there were like five more chapters of growth and tension, it would have got me and I would have been all over it.,

Overall, I thought this book was a really solid start for a new author and I would love to read more. I really really enjoyed the message of how stories twist and change over time and turn into something false. It just didn't quite hit me like a four or five star book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for the eArc!

This is such as beautiful, atmospheric story that is rich in culture, religion, and especially heavy on how religion can be used as a political weapon. There are several moments that we see Malka, her family, and community, experience oppression which leads them to being blamed for murder, hunger, lack of resources, and more. I loved all of the history and folklore and I felt completely immersed.

The romance is very much a subplot which I had no issues with and I felt it made sense to not have the romance be the primary focus based on everything else that is going on. There is tension, longing, slowburn, and overall a lovely sapphic romance.

I did feel that there was a lot of saying rather than doing. There were just moments that the story felt slow and I would have liked for them to put their plans in action a bit more.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, Tor Books, and Tor Publishing Group for this advanced copy! You can pick up The Maiden and Her Monster on September 9, 2025.

You can tell Maddie Martinez spent HOURS researching and carefully crafting the history and lore in this book. Her dedication is incredible, and the result is wonderfully rich writing and tons of allusions to the real horrors Jewish people faced. But outside of the lore and history, I found the characters and plot in this story to be a bit lacking.

Malka and Nimrah had such potential, but it almost felt like this story would've had better development if there hadn't been a romance between them (it's hard to believe their shift from pure animosity to attraction and lust within a few chapters). We also see a tonal shift in the book about one-third of the way through, from cozy horror forest core fantasy to political intrigue and religious persecution. I think either concept could've been executed well if we'd maintained focus on one throughout the whole book.

Overall, this story has immense potential, but I think the vision could've been a bit clearer.

I struggled with rating this one because it was well crafted but I just did not enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to. At the beginning, I was immediately sucked in. The culture is Jewish inspired and the religious dynamic of the world building adds some interesting layers to the story. I enjoyed the way the lore continued to build on itself throughout the first half of story.
However, I didn’t anticipate how central the religious element would become to the storyline and I found it enjoyable 50% of the time. I did like the fables and stories littered throughout the story as a way to provide context, but there started to be too many of them when compared to actual plot, and it started to feel like lazy writing.

I don’t know why but I was picturing Nimrah as a middle aged woman so it threw me off when the romance began to bloom. I didn’t even consider her as the book’s “monster” at first.

I do feel like time was handled strangely in this book. It seemed like the characters travelled a very far distance in not a lot of time. And I do like when stories don’t get too bogged down with the travel if it’s not important to the narrative, but it did take me out a bit because they seem to cross a lot of distance very quickly.

There was a reveal about mid way through that I didn’t like. It felt way too coincidental to be good writing. In a city of thousands, your character just happens to encounter the one person who can provide this reveal?

The factor of if a queer relationship is accepted or not was not ever raised and it’s felt strange to me. With a book so filled with such ridged religious systems, it seems a lapse.

I don’t know how to explain it better than I felt that most of the choices the story took felt slightly underwhelming to me. I struggled with rating this one because it was well crafted but I just did not enjoy it as much as I thought I was going to.

I was immediately sucked in. Didn’t want to put it down in the beginning.

The culture is Jewish inspired and the religious dynamic of the world building adds some interesting layers to the story. I enjoy the way the lore continued to build on itself throughout the story.

I did like the fables and stories littered throughout the story as a way to provide context, but there started to be too many of them when compared to actual plot, and it started to feel lazy.

I don’t know why but I was picturing Nimrah as a middle aged woman so it threw me off when the romance began

I do feel like time was handled strangely in this book. It seemed like the characters travelled a very far distance in not a lot of time. And I do like when stories don’t get too bogged down with the travel if it’s not important to the narrative, but it did take me out a bit because they seem to cross a lot of distance very quickly.

There was a reveal about mid way through that I didn’t like. It felt way too coincidental to be good writing. In a city of thousands, your character just happens to encounter the one person who can provide this reveal?

The factor of if a queer relationship is accepted or not was not ever raised and it’s felt strange to me. With a book so filled with such ridged religious systems, it seems a lapse

I don’t know how to explain it better than I felt that most of the choices the story took felt slightly underwhelming to me. Like there could have been a more compelling option for the characters to take. There were also too many convenient loop-holes used to get the characters out of problems that had been established earlier in the novel.

It was not afraid to go there with some of the depictions of gore or violence. They were always a bit of a surprise compared to the rest of the story’s style.

In the end, I did enjoy it but I am happy it is a standalone, as if it was a series, I do not think I enjoyed it enough to continue. 3.75 stars

Unfortunately the book just wasn’t for me. The characters were boring including the fmc and the story was moving so slow at the beginning that I was struggling to push through it. The interesting part of this book is definitely the folklore but the other aspects of the plot seemed lacking in my opinion, but again I’m sure this would be great for someone else just not me.

I was so excited to read this book. The summary sounded amazing, but the book just fell flat for me. It took awhile to read it, sorry to say it felt like the book would never end. There were some interesting parts and kinda held my attention more towards the end.

This book was hanging on by a thread, and that thread was the folklore.

I don’t think it really has much more than that going for it, the characters are all pretty boring and every time I thought “oh this part is interesting” we quickly moved on to a plot point that didn’t hold my interest.

I’m sure some people could like this, but if you’ve read a lot of folklore retellings/dark magical realism, this simply won’t stack up.

This didn’t really live up to the hype, it seems as though the cover only represents a fraction of the book, this didn’t keep up that same spooky forest vibe as it promises which was a real let down

I think this one just wasn't for me because it wasn't quite what I expected based on the summary. I appreciated the Jewish folklore. That was the standout part of this world for me and gave the story a unique angle.
However, the enemies-to-lovers romance didn't quite hit the mark for me. I was also expecting the story to be focused on the forest and monsters, but the story went in a completely different direction when the characters left the forest for the city. I grabbed this hoping for a magical forest story, so the shift to the city didn't interest me as much. It also felt like the story was pulling Malka along rather than her driving it, and because of that her character never quite gripped me.

Thank you to Tor Books and Netgalley for sending me an early copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

I absolutely devoured this book, and I have zero regrets! This was such a powerful book in so many ways, and I just know it is going to resonate with so many people.

From the strength of our MC to her love for her family and her people, Martinez paints such a poignant picture of oppression and the affects it has on the individual in addition to the group as a whole. This is a story of grief, but it is also a story of strength and hope. It is a story of resilience and the battles that the oppressed face just to make it to the next day. The depth of this book will resonate for so many, and I can't wait to watch as it does!

I loved the folklore and the way that stories are told within this story. There is so much depth to the religion and culture, and it makes everything so much more real. You can truly put yourself into their shoes, see them on the outside of the pages, and feel their grief and heartache with them. It's hard not to.

This was a truly beautiful book, and you are not going to want to miss out on any part of it.

I loved reading this book. Maddie's worldbuilding and prose is dark and lyrical, giving a fresh twist on the mythology of the Golem.

4.5 ⭐️
Just want to start off by thanking Tor for the eARC and also thank you to the Macmillan Audio Influencer Program for the ALC. I really enjoyed doing an immersive read of this book. Jewish folklore and culture is very interesting to me and I tend to gravitate towards books about it. While it had a slower beginning, the story really picked up for me around the halfway point. The slow story-telling didn’t bother me though because there was background information needed for context being presented to the reader. I found the characters in the story to be full of life despite the bleak conditions of their world. The magic system was so wonderful! I think that was one of my favorite parts of the book. I would love to read more fantasy books by Maddie Martinez. The author does an excellent job exploring queerness and religious persecution in a sapphic fantasy with a touch of horror. The forest is alive and she’s waiting for you. As a big fan of Ava Reid, this book gave me the same kind of butterflies and longing that her books leave me with.

I wanted to like this book so badly! It was one of my most highly anticipated releases of the year. But while I was immediately drawn in and engaged for the first few chapters, I ended up getting bored. I liked the characters, so I wanted to keep reading because at that point I was attached to Malka and Nimrah. However, I think the writing style may just not be for me.

The atmosphere and Jewish folklore are definitely the standout parts of this book! Any kind of folklore, moody, “forresty” type books are usually a guaranteed hit for me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really get into this one.

The pacing was something I struggled with in this book. It is only around 350 pages but it felt like 500 pages of dragging on to me. If I didn’t have the audiobook available (Nikki Massoud did a great job) I would’ve really struggled to finish this. There was no chemistry between the love interests and I did not understand why they were very quickly so into each other. I could not get myself to be invested in the story or the characters. 5 stars to the beautiful cover though hehe.

Oh I'm so disappointed to not have loved this one.

Malka, our main character, suffers a little from being the most tragic character to have ever existed, but sadly her circumstances don't lead her to being any kinder to the love interest, who she repeatedly refers to as a monster. She is deeply unlikable, which really affected my appreciation of this book.

I found the writing a little disjointed with how frequently the author inserts, not only words in Hebrew or Czech, but also her own made up names and languages into the writing. While I appreciate that there was a glossary, there would be 3 words, at times, in a sentence, which really broke up the reading experience for me, and gave me little chance to remember what these words meant.