The Hollow Girl

August 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Bethan is a young Roma woman living with her grandmother, the clan's healer, and learning the trade. Tired of just herb craft, she yearns to move on to magic. Silas, the chieftain's son, has decided she will be his, and with his three friends harasses Bethan. Wintering with the clan in Anwen's Crossing, Wales, Bethan meets Martyn at the local market. A farmer's son with some Roma blood, she quickly finds herself attracted to him but not without consequences. Silas and his friends trap and assault both of them, leaving Martyn lifeless. Bethan, with her grandmother's help, is plunged into the ways of blood magic, and finds herself on a gruesome quest where she confronts Silas and his accomplices to extract bits of them for a spell to save Martyn. Through the process, Bethan learns more about her past, and the high cost of magic and revenge. The characters are mostly three-dimensional, and glimpses into their lives give more background on their personalities. The text is descriptive with Romani terms peppered throughout and haunting descriptions of locations. The violence and trauma Bethan endures from Silas, and her subsequent acts are described in detail. The worst of her assault is alluded to. Both compelling and terrifying, this is a tense tale of love and fear. Due to the levels of violence, this is more appropriate for older readers. VERDICT This book has strong appeal for fans of horror, supernatural, or revenge stories.-Tamara Saarinen, Pierce County Library, WA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2017
A Welsh Romani girl faces appalling violence and responds with magic.Seventeen-year-old Bethan has been raised by her clan's drabarni, their witch. Her trips into town to sell her grandmother's magical remedies are plagued by harassment from Silas, the clan chieftain's son. She's protected only by Martyn, a young townsman. Like Bethan, Martyn is diddicoy, mixed Romani and white. Unlike her, he's been raised in a gadjo town and knows nothing about his Welsh Kale heritage. Still, he befriends her and tries to protect her from Silas--which puts him right in the line of fire of Silas' violence. Silas and his friends beat Martyn nearly to death, then Silas rapes Bethan. The attack brings about Bethan's nascent magical power, and she enacts revenge with horrific, blood-soaked magic. Though Bethan stresses that Silas and his cronies are exceptions to Romani morality, the only Romani young men depicted participate in rape and attempted murder. And while Gran explains that her magic doesn't come from Romani blood, the clan's caravan life is dominated by the drabarni's dark spells. The result leaves an earnest narrator attempting to depict Romani life as neither criminal nor magical, while the tale itself is about Romani who are at least one or the other. A cathartic revenge fantasy of rape recovery, Quentin Tarantino-style, weakened by the stereotype-laden depiction of Romani people. (Fantasy/horror. 14-17)

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September 1, 2017
Grades 9-12 Bethan's grandmother Drina, witch to a clan of Welsh Romanies, has taught her herbs and healing, but Bethan wants to learn magic. Drina, though, sends Bethan to the marketplace instead, where she strikes up a friendship with Martyn, a half Roma boy. But the chieftain's son, Silas, has cast a possessive, if unreciprocated, eye toward Bethan, and he and his friends attack, leaving Martyn near death and Bethan brutally, utterly changed. Drina reluctantly agrees to help Bethan harness a powerful magic that will bring Martyn back from the edge of death and allow Bethan to enact a grisly retribution as she harvests body parts from the boys who hurt her. Monahan, who was inspired by the stories her grandmother told, approaches this subject, and Bethan's culture, with delicacy and care. The majority of the rape scene occurs offscreen, though it's no less troubling, and what follows is a dark, painful examination of trauma. The end comes a bit neatly, but this is an eerie, unsettling novel that will linger long with readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018
Sixteen-year-old Welsh-Romani girl Bethan is raped and her non-Romani friend Martyn brutally beaten by the chieftan's son and four friends. To save Martyn and avenge the assault, wise woman Gran proposes a shocking spell requiring five blood sacrifices. Bethan's slow recovery is portrayed with sensitivity, and her righteous desire for retribution is tempered with an awareness of what she needs to heal her own soul.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2017
Sixteen-year-old Bethan, a Welsh-Romani girl, is the granddaughter and heir of her clan's wise woman. She studies medicinal herbs with Gran and sells the remedies and charms the pair make but is impatient to study real magic. She meets a handsome, kind boy, Martyn, at the market, but romance, especially with a boy from outside her clan, is considered immodest. Everything changes when the chieftain's entitled son, Silas--who has been aggressively pursuing Bethan against her wishes and the rules of propriety--learns of her friendship with Martyn. Silas and four friends plan and perpetrate a brutal attack, raping Bethan and leaving Martyn clinging to life. To save Martyn and avenge the assault, Gran proposes a shocking spell--one that requires five blood sacrifices. Bethan soon discovers that magic, revenge, and even Gran's past are far darker than she ever wanted to know. While the magical elements place this novel firmly in the genre of historical fantasy, a foreword relates Monahan's fascination with stories from her own grandmother's life, as well as her desire to reimagine the problematic trope of the Romani fortuneteller into "a story of empowerment." Monahan portrays Bethan's slow physical and emotional recoveries with nuance and sensitivity. Bethan's righteous desire for retribution is (unlike the more bloodthirsty Gran's) tempered with an awareness of what she needs to protect and heal her own soul, and the conclusion leaves her looking toward the future with hope. katie bircher

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)