Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin
My rating: 3/5 cats
i am unable to see magic eye puzzles. whether it is my astigmatism or whatever is miswired in my brain that was giving me that off-brand epilepsy some years back, i am not able to get the same joy as others out of those things.
but i enjoy the enjoyment of others.
and i was really excited to find this on the free shelves at work, knowing that other people had really loved it.
but for me, it wasn’t a home run. i don’t see it.
the premise is great – it is not a retelling of poe’s story, but it borrows some of his visuals. in poe, a plague has ravaged the city, and a wealthy prince gathers together a number of his privileged elite, who lock themselves into his castle and party like only the entitled can, bravely and optimistically, believing themselves immune to the fate that awaits us all. they are incorrect.
here, we have a similar dichotomy: unfortunate people dying in the street from plague with corpse-collectors at the ready
while the wealthy who can afford masques with air-filtration capabilities travel in steam-powered carriages in all their corsetted finery to nightclubs where they seek oblivion in drink, drugs, and casual sex.
araby, our heroine, is part of the masque-class only because her scientist-father invented the things. she spent years living underground with her twin brother and mother while people up top died horribly, so she has a different perspective than those born to their golden-bubble status. she has seen some shit. and after her brother dies, she gets sucked into a depression where all she wants is to not feel anything.
after getting caught in a suicide attempt (oops, how embarrassing) by april, the prince’s niece, she begins to go to these nightclubs with her, and more often than not ends up passed out somewhere after indulging in a syringe full of oblivion.
on the one hand, i applaud the balls – that we have come so far in YA lit that our heroine can be a suicidal teenager with a drug problem, and not just the occasional joint – she is mainlining. suck it, joel stein! i also like her noli me tangere attitude: she feels such guilt over the death of her brother, that she vows not to ever experience anything he did not have a chance to, so physical intimacy is right out. apparently, though, it is okay for her to do drugs, go to nightclubs, dye her hair, wear glitter…it is a vow filled with holes, but she does try to stay away from physical expression of attraction. until she realizes she is in a YA novel, so there has to be a love triangle.
one of the boys is a working class dreamboat, mopping up vomit and administering plague-tests at the nightclub to support his two younger siblings so he can afford to buy them plague masques of their very own. the other is april’s brother, an idealistic revolutionary, who gives araby drugs and tries to encourage her to assist him in his planned revolt against his uncle, the prince, to bring power to the people.
how is a vow-burdened girl to choose?
i just didn’t find her character as compelling as her potential. she was so easily led, so trusting. i appreciate that she always wants to do the right thing, but she is so impulsive that it frequently comes across as gullible.take a minute, araby View Spoiler » your brother didn’t get to do that, after all.
i thought the setting was well done, but if you are going to give your world the additional threat of genetically-modified giant bats intended to eat plague-carrying mosquitoes which have gone rogue…well, more than just a passing mention would be nice. let’s see some bat-on-human action!
there is so much of this world i do not understand, but to question it here would amount to spoilers, and i know that even if i put them in a spoiler tag, you people will be all christmas-morning present-shakers – the allure of the spoiler tag is too great.
for maureen: this book was like cotton candy. it is one of the most beautiful ARCs i have ever seen – the sheen, the font, the colors – it is beautiful. but like cotton candy, it feels insubstantial. it melts in your mouth and leaves you with so many unanswered questions (where does cotton candy go???), and you kind of wish you had eaten a rib-sticking caramel apple instead.
i wish i had loved this book as much as i loved wendy darling’s review of it. i wish i had lyndsey’s enthusiasm for it. but my eyes, they just don’t see it.
but i will read the next one, obviously. if only for the hope of a bat.
