The Mask Falling

Book Title: The Mask Falling

Author: Samantha Shannon

Series: The Bone Season #4

Date Started: December 23rd 2020

Date Completed: December 31st 2020

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Dystopian, Sci-Fi

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Since I read the first Bone Season novel I've loved this series, and it always takes me reading the new instalment to remember just how much I do love it (I know I still like it, but it feels like each book rekindles the same feeling of excitement again, and that's priceless). The Mask Falling has, like each instalment, been a long time coming, and I'm very happy to say I enjoyed every minute of it.

These books are pure entertainment and excitement. The characters are fun and investable; the locations are recreated some real cities in full glory with such creativity and wonder; the plots feel like puzzles and murder mysteries without anyone even being hit over the head with a candlestick. It has the flair of revolution and literature and it's a little gilded, but that's where the fun comes from.

That's not to say that the book is perfect. While I love Paige, she, like many protagonists in stories leaning on the YA side, could do with engaging her brain a little more actively sometimes. And while the schemes are ingenious and the puzzles inventive, I can't help but feel it's a little too 'refined' for an attitude that would really nail it home (without drawing comparisons, I couldn't help being reminded that the Throne of Glass series has just as fiendish strategies, but has a bit of an attitude to make it really strike its crux).

And there are so. Many. Names. Samantha, I love you, take all the time you need between books, but please don't expect me to remember who everyone is by their mollisher names (or even just their normal names...) - I appreciate that in the physical books you can flip to the character glossary but it made reading this review galley a little difficult. And there is such strength in the immersion of this vividly rich world that I don't want to be taken away from it to look through a glossary just to be on my feet with the politics.

I do sometimes wonder if The Bone Season needs to be a seven-book series (a lot of similar antics happen over and over again - though the gaps in publication and growing layers of politics mean it still feels fresh) but, nonetheless, I'll be sitting here waiting for the next one, and the next, until we reach the end of Paige's story.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Book Title: Lonely Castle in the Mirror

Author: Mizuki Tsujimura

Date Started: December 5th 2020

Date Completed: December 23rd 2020

Genres: Magical Realism, Contemporary

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Lonely Castle in the Mirror since it started off feeling very predictable. Its story is not a new concept, but the way in which it was told was. While a little slow and contrite at times, the moments when it reaches out or reveals itself are genius enough for it not to matter.

Tsujimura is clearly a lover and student of fairytales, and I felt so akin to the way in which she used that to anchor the story. While most of the stories are Western, there's a real reclaiming of them in the Japanese culture we get to see which I really liked. The puzzle-solving element for the reader, rather familiar from classical fairytales, to work out just what is happening in this mysterious castle in the mirror was especially enjoyable - and while I worked out the first twist before the end, its very last one was still a surprise.

I also want to give praise to the translator (who I'm having real trouble finding the name of, which is actually quite upsetting) because they've done a fantastic job. Part of what reached me with this book was its honesty and clarity in the experiences of its young characters, something that felt so real and eerily familiar that it moved me to tears. To write that kind of authenticity is an achievement on its own, to communicate it across to another language is yet another.

I will say that the majority of this book is very talky. It feels like literary fiction a lot of the time, with a dash of magical realism for good measure. While I'm not particularly well educated in what's happening in contemporary Japan, the short afterword does do a lot to explain why this book is so important; Japan is ranked second from the bottom for the rates of young people's mental health. While I don't think context is vital to appreciate a story on its own, Tsujimura's already colourful exploration of young people and coming of age felt all the more vivid after realising that.

The magical realism may frustrate some people, but I feel like it's possibly a good introduction to Japanese fantasy for Western readers, as well as also just being a comforting and enjoyable read in its own right.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Book Title: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Author: V.E. Schwab

Date Started: October 17th 2020

Date Completed: December 5th 2020

Genres: Romance, Historical, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was quite a long way from what I had thought I was going to be reading when I picked it up that can, for me, ultimately be distilled into a cool concept made too convoluted. While I'm used to a good mix of adventure/mystery from her stories (or at least a little fantastical drama), this time Schwab chose to go down the purely romantic genre with a historical flair, which caught me a little off guard. It is fantastical too, but it doesn't feed too much into the story.

I will openly admit that part of why this novel felt so dragged out was because I was reading it over the course of nearly three months. While not necessarily that long, it does pack a lot of prettily-written information into every sentence. I love that about Schwab's writing but I'm still puzzling over one thing: why is this book the same three scenes over and over again? Addie gets forgotten by a past lover; Addie gets taunted by Luc; Addie and Henry do coupley things. Over and over again, set in slightly different (and conveniently recognisable) historical time periods. There are only two significant plot points, first when Addie meets Henry about a third through and then when she tries to save him at the end - other than that, nothing changes across the entire novel, and it felt so out of character for Schwab's storytelling that I was even more uneasy about the whole thing.

At the start, I felt the book was overly sentimental and, by the end, I suspect that may be the root of why I didn't enjoy it. You can see Schwab has poured her heart into it, but there's no discipline in the storytelling; there barely is a story, it's all so fragmented and dreamy, but without a driving force (or even really a goal) as a result. This glimmers of character and moments in time and images are beautiful and so clearly emotionally relevant to the writer, but it's all so patchworked together it felt unpolished as an actual novel for me.

The above being personal preferences, I do also want to point out that the final resolution to this book was disappointing even if you disagree with my stylistic observations. Why is it always that the boy gets redemption and the female protagonist 'sacrifices' something. I'm so bored of that trope, especially with a character like Addie who otherwise rejects all expectations of what she should be unless she makes them for herself.

My overall takeaway from the book was quite disappointing given how much I love some of Schwab's other work and how much hype there was around this particular one. For me, it just petered along the same way all through and then fell back onto a cliche at the end. I'm sure a lot of people will like it a lot, and I'm not saying it's necessarily bad - but I don't understand some of the creative choices, and it's not my thing overall.