As such, I couldn’t get a sense of who she was at all.Įven now, there are so many blank spots in my mental picture of her as a character, since a lot of her motivations and behaviors just didn’t match up. If I had to guess, I would say it’s the writing style told in first-person present tense, the narration could have been a lot more powerful, but instead it came across very clipped as I was bombarded with simple short sentences that often described everything Araby saw in front of her eyes but sadly not what was going on inside her head. I also think the main character had a lot of potential, but for some reason Araby feels pretty much devoid of any personality. On the one hand, I’m completely in love with the setting, and my one regret is wanting to know a lot more about the history and background than the book was able to give me. Still grieving the death of her twin brother which she believes is her fault, Araby wants to help change the way things are by working towards making salvation from the disease available to all. Those who have the means to afford them buy the elaborate porcelain masks which help prevent the contagion, but the dictator Prince Prospero has a iron hold over their production. 17-year-old Araby Worth lives life amongst the elite thanks to her father’s illustrious career as a scientist, while the poor are left to fend for themselves in a city ridden with plague and death.

The book is set in a gothic, post-apocalyptic rendition of the late 1800s, with a dash of steampunk mixed in for good measure.

It had some good ideas, and so I wanted to like this, tried hard to like it, but in the end there simply were too many issues that prevented me from getting on board. It’s tough, seeing as Masque of the Red Death is a Young Adult dystopian novel inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name, and so it is at once creative, original and highly ambitious - which all happen to be qualities I admire in a book.

Never have I felt so broken up over writing a review for a book that ultimately ended up not being my cup of tea. Series: Book 1 of Masque of the Red Death Genre: Young Adult Fantasy Dystopia Steampunk

Masque of the Red Deathby Bethany Griffin

The fall by bethany griffin