I was really excited to finally read this book but I ended up quite disappointed. The synopsis is a great one, it's unique and creepy but it failed to deliver. There are many things that didn't work for me:

-the main character seems to be the only one to actually care about those girls, which was unbelievable, also we're being told many times that she is a troublemaker, but it's never explained why? is she a troublemarker because she's the only one who doesn't act like an emotionless robot? because shes likes bugs? i found that hard to believe that literally no one cares about those girls except her and that the entire street despises HER in particular, her narration also became quite repetitive pretty fast

-the descriptions, i'm a big fan of horror but the creepy/gore moments made me feel nothing, the descriptions didn't actually allow me to visualize the events clearly so it cancelled their effects. i don't think I would consider this book a "horror book", people's reactions to the transformations were simply unbelieavable

-it was too drawn out, the books starts off great, but then it slows down for about 100 pages before finally picking up the pace, we lose too much time on insignificant things, I don't see the point of Adrian's character same things for the tourists who came to see the girls side plot, unrealistic for me, and the parent's reactions made no sense, their girls are dying and being followed by creeps who take pictures of them and they still make them go to church on sundays?? hmmm

-none of the characters are actually developped, not even the girls, I wish we had known more about them, their transformations happened wayyyy too fast and I would have liked to have internal narration from their point of view, seeing it from the outside wasn't enough and we don't get any answers as to why they came to be, why them, why not other girls before etc

I'm still giving it 3 stars because it was a great plot idea and the writing was quite good and atmospheric. The cover is great too!

Unnerving Magazine

Listen to my interview with the author: https://www.unnervingmagazine.com/single-post/2018/10/05/EP016---Talking-The-Rust-Maidens-With-Gwendolyn-Kiste

The imagery was fun and atmospheric. Heavy on emotion over activity in the way voice-over works in film. Fun payoff in the finale and a super fun sickness.

Beautiful, tragic, unique

An important new offering in the horror genre. The Rust Maidens was unlike any other story I’ve read, walking a difficult line between both feeling very “real” and presenting characters and situations that are utterly unreal... but make sense in the world they inhabit.

I added The Rust Maidens to my tbr back in 2019, so this is another book that has been on my list for quite some time! The title and cover art definitely caught my attention.

In the summer of 1980 we follow the struggles of Phoebe, an 18-year-old living in a small town in Cleveland who has just graduated from high school. Things are the same as they are every year: a rusting steel mill on the horizon, the men in town going on strike, street barbecues, and an uncertain future for everyone in town. The town is dying slowly, but everyone seems to be ignoring this fact. That is, until the first girl starts to transform. The people in town struggle as they try to ignore this transformation, until they no longer can. Phoebe tries to help the girls, especially her cousin and best friend Jacqueline, but nothing she does works out right. The story alternates between Phoebe’s POV in 1980, as she witnesses the transformation of the Rust Maidens, and Phoebe’s POV now as she returns to her childhood home.

I had a feeling I would like this one, and I was right about that! The book is listed as ‘horror’, but besides the body horror it is more like a mix of drama and mystery. The story is very haunting though, at times it is like the protagonist is living through a long fever dream. While everyone in town wants to ignore the Rust Maidens, even calling them ‘attention-seekers’, Phoebe just wants to help them somehow, even when no one seems to be on her side. Doctors do their tests on the transforming girls, tourists show up to take pictures, and government agents do their own investigating, but no one knows what is happening, or why. The transforming girls themselves are more united together than they were ever before, leaving Phoebe more alone than she has ever been and throwing the townspeople into chaos. The book focuses mostly on Phoebe’s struggle to understand what is happening and her trying to help, as well as the treatment of the girls by the town. They’re all stuck in this town with no future, kept in line by their parents and societies expectations of them.

While I enjoyed this read a lot, it did have some weaker points, one of them being Phoebe. It did take me some time to warm up to her. She can come across as melodramatic at times, and I felt like the author tried a little too much to make her ‘special’ (or not like the other girls). However, her compassion towards the other girls and her determination to help them definitely made me like her a lot more. Besides, I think a lot of people would be a bit dramatic in her situation. I also wasn’t in love with the chapters in the ‘now’ POV, I just felt like something was missing.

I’m glad I finally got around to reading this one. I will definitely be thinking about this one for a while, I’ll definitely be looking for other books from this author.

I loved it.

A simple sentiment for a not-so-simple book.

As a rust belt denizen (though a transplant), the scenery and deterioration presented so arrestingly in the story is something I have seen first hand. I can feel this story down to the rust in my bones.

I don't want to say too much about the plot, as I think this deserves to be read with little to no preconceptions. Suffice it to say that a few girls in a steel mill neighborhood are changing into … something. Their skin, their hair, their bones rusting and splintering like the neighborhood around them.

Without going into too much detail, I have to say that I adored the way the Rust Maidens were portrayed. I'm still not sure exactly how to categorize them, or if categorization is even possible. They are both victim and predator. They are rebels, and they are iconoclasts, but they are also slave to a process outside their control. The question of free will comes through a lot. Do the Rust Maidens have it? Does anyone in their neighborhood, so dependent on the goodwill of Steel Mill bosses, get to choose their path in life?

And the ending! Is there any escape? How many years, miles, or dollars can separate you from the things that built you?

This is a truly wonderful book, creepy where it needs to be, sad, frustrating, and thought-provoking.

Read it.

PS - I got this book as part of the Twitterstone horror book subscription box, which I also highly recommend!