Happy 2022 and I'm glad to spend my first 2 days of the new calendar year reading The Midnight Girls. This is a wintry and atmospheric book set in the alternate 18th Century Poland. It has an interesting blend of Slavic folklore, magic, as well as morally ambiguous characters.

Being a semi-seasonal reader myself, The Midnight Girls is fitting as a winter read. Personally I'm in love with the Jasinska's charming prose that brings the magic of Karnawal into life. I also felt intrigued about the fascinating magic system: the elementals, the light vs the dark, and the different Yagas.

Another forte of The Midnight Girls is the characterisation - particularly that of Marynka and Zosia's. Jasinska toyed with a few YA tropes (e.g. enemies to lovers romance and morally grey characters) but manages to add an original twists to them. Reading about their mutual pining is quite a refreshing experience that it shows that f/f relationship isn't just all love-dovey & that there are messy sides with regards to the moral conflicts that the characters experienced.

While story setting & the main characters are pretty solid throughout the novel, I found a few areas of the book a tad lacking. Personally, the pacing was bit uneven (the middle portion dragged a bit) and I would have wished that the worldbuilding details (particularly the interesting magic system that Jasinska has introduced) are more thoroughly explored.

Despite a few places that slightly derailed my experience, I nevertheless found The Midnight Girls quite a fun read. The f/f relationship is pretty well done, the magic system is intriguing, and last but not least I also learnt a bit about the history of the 18th century Poland (with a healthy dose of magic) from the worldbuilding.

N.B. This book contains following content warnings: blood mention, violence, murder, and abuse