Review: 'The Monstrous Misses Mai' by Van Hoang

Set in 1950's Los Angeles, this novel finds four young women, each with the middle name Mai and of Asian descent, living together in a small apartment. Each dreams of something, hopes for something, strongly desires something. How far will they go to get it? And what are they willing to sacrifice along the way? Meet The Monstrous Misses Mai, Van Hoang's novel of magic and choices. Also, what a stunning, utterly gorgeous cover! Thanks to 47North and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 04/01/2024
Publisher: 47North

Los Angeles brims with opportunity in 1959—though not for aspiring fashion designer Cordelia Mai Yin, the first-generation child of Vietnamese immigrants, who finds the city unkind to outsiders and as dispirited as her own family. When Cordi rents a cheap loft in an old apartment building, she quickly warms to kindred souls Tessa, Audrey, and Silly. They also want better things and have pasts they’d rather forget. That they all share the same middle name makes their friendship seem like destiny.

As supportive as they are of each other, it’s a struggle just to eke out a living, let alone hope to see their wishes for success come true. Until an ever-present and uncannily charming acquaintance of the landlord’s offers a solution to their problems. He promises to fulfill their every dream. All it takes is a little magic. And a small sacrifice.

As one surprisingly effective spell leads to another, their wishes get bigger. But so does the price they must pay. Amid the damaged seams of her life so far, Cordi must realize her own power in order to rip free, without losing everything she’s worked so hard to achieve.

Cordi is in a situation! She has been disowned by her parents for disobeying and now she needs to find a place to live. At an apartment viewing, a kind stranger called Callum helps her to snag a loft space. In fact, Callum has somehow helped all her roommates to their rooms as well. To add to the odd coincidence, they all share the middle name Mai. And so, they become the Misses Mais: Cordi, Tessa, Silly, and Audrey. Calum has more "help" to offer, however, in the form of Lura, a dangerous magic which will make all your dreams come true, as long as you're willing to sacrifice something. Good things do start happening. Cordi's dreams of turning her seamstress experience into designing seem to come true. But how much is her hard work and talent and how much is the magic? Does it matter? And what when the cost keeps rising? I found Cordi a really intriguing main character. Van Hoang is clearly trying to say something about the experience of first-gen Americans, of how their parents' immigration background affects their lives, and how these battling cultural expectations create a tightrope walk. This background made me feel for Cordi and also helped me understand why she might be willing to accept a little help, in the form of magic. 

Something I liked about The Monstrous Misses Mai was how Van Hoang employed this magic system in a historical fiction context. Lura, the magic of the novel, is something everyone whispers about, something the young women are warned about, and while it is terrifying and powerful, it also works as a solid metaphor for privilege. In a way I prefer Lura as a metaphor, rather than thinking of it as an actual magic system, but that is because of my love for deeply complex magic systems in Fantasy. Lura as a system feels too simple to me, in the sense that Hoang doesn't fully work it out. However, Lura as a metaphor for class and privilege, works brilliantly! In order to belong, you just need to sacrifice something you love, every time. It's not that hard really, just sell your soul, and everything you want will be yours. Don't look to closely at how people use others for their gains, just accept that everything has a cost. In that way, Lura, and the concept of magic, works excellently in The Monstrous Misses Mai. A minor complaint I would attach to that is that I wasn't sure which balance the novel was trying to strike with the themes it was addressing. On the one hand, the novel absolutely addresses race, class, and privilege. On the other hand, the tone of the novel is not overly harsh or horrifying. Rather, there was something a little dreamlike to it for me. Because of that, I was surprised to see this listed as Horror on Goodreads, since I would solidly put it in Fantasy, with a bit of violence. I consider this a minor criticism, because I enjoyed reading The Monstrous Misses Mai a lot, even if I wasn't sure how hard it wanted to go. 

This was my first book by Van Hoang and I saw that she has mostly written Middle Grade Fantasy up until now. I can see how she is transitioning from that to a more Adult Fantasy here in The Monstrous Misses Mai. As I said, the tone was quite dreamlike to me, in a good way, but this also made it a gentler read that you can easily sink in to. There is death and danger in this book, but I found myself mostly drawn in by the intriguing internal conflict Cordi experiences, her growth as a young woman, Hoang's commentary, and the beautiful descriptions of the LA high life. I would love to see how Van Hoang continues to develop her adult writing style, because there is definitely a lot of interesting things here. So I'll definitely keep an eye open for future books by her!

I give this novel...

3 Universes!

The Monstrous Misses Mai is a delightfully twisted read, full of magic and darkness, and yet also beauty, friendship, and self-discovery. Van Hoang weaves in the experiences of first-generation Americans and comments on the impact of class, race, and gender in a 1950s LA.