Mask of Shadows completely lost me…. // Dnf’d Book Review

“I would remember them forever–their names, my reasons, the way their bodies slumped in death and their eyes stared through me.”

Summary:

Sal is a gender-fluid thief who wants to take back his/her life from the nobles and take revenge, so when he/she spots an opportunity calling for a replacement in the Left Hand (a group of powerful beings who serve the needs of the Queen), Sal decides to audition at the risk of a perilous conspiracy and enter these trials.

***Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, LGBT

***Received from Netgalley for an honest review.

My thoughts:

Due to stubborn pride, I’ve only DNF’d a handful of books in my entire life, yet I had to put this one down after great pains; the setup of this book is so bizarrely rushed yet complicated at times, I was disoriented within a matter of chapters.

However, as I don’t have the ability (nor desire) to explain this book in full detail, I’ll just say that it didn’t live up. The plot felt incredibly shambled together, characters did things without any apparent motivation, and the plot jumped from one point to another with an urgency that never felt earned: there’s simply no setup to this story given beyond, “Here are the good and bad guys, look at them go at each others’ throats.”

Worst of all, I felt nothing for these characters’ plights. Even as they were dropping dead like flies left and right, all I could register in such moments were, “Oh, someone died. Am I supposed to be shocked by this…?” The author seems to take the readers’ emotional investment for granted simply due to universal truths like “death is a sad thing,” but as I was given very little reason to care about these characters, I found it difficult to soak in any other feeling besides that of supreme blandness.

Long story short, don’t waste your time on this one. There’s literally no pretense of even attempting a setup here as this book simply info-dumps characters into a Hunger Games setting, and it was bland, tedious, and confusing.

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Bottom line: What a discombobulated mess.

I normally don’t rate or review books I DNF-ed as I don’t feel secure enough in my opinion to utterly bash someone else’s work, but I did read half of the book (and gave it multiple chances to redeem itself), so I feel confident saying that regardless this book’s conclusion, my rating would’ve been exceptionally low: I don’t take to half-assed foundations, and this was a throwaway setup if I’d ever seen one.

Thus, I do not recommend this book. Even with the selling point of a gender-fluid protagonist, this book’s writing is not up to snuff, and it was probably one of the more painful reading experiences I’d had in years.

My tentative rating: 1/5 frogs

***By the way, I think I might be a Star Wars fan now. *Boom!* I know, I know, what a random comment. But I just got back from watching The Last Jedi, and my goodness, was it great! I’ve always been a less-than-casual Star Wars fan (as space operas aren’t really my thing), but dare I say I’m finally becoming a convert? 😀

***Oh, and pretzels at movie theaters suck. Something I learned the hard way.