Mask of Shadows

This book had so much potential but fell flat for me. Lately, I have really been in the mood for diverse books with a wide array of characters. This book focuses on Sal who is this amazingly strong, independent person. They also happen to be gender-fluid. For me this was the strongest part of the book. Linsey Smith does an incredible job of making sure Sal's pronouns are not they only part of their character. They are not their gender or lack thereof. I really appreciated that the focus was on the competition rather than the character.

That being said, I really struggled with the writing in this book. I love being able to visualize the worlds I'm reading about and place myself right by the characters as they go on their journey. However, I really struggled to do that with this book. The world building was severely lacking and even simple details and descriptions were lacking. Now the character descriptions could have been intentional to add to the idea that gender does not define a person. I just personally struggled without the descriptions I'm used to in various books.

As for the actual plot, I really enjoyed the idea of the competition to become the Queen's assassin. It was a great idea, but for me the execution was lacking. There were many parts that were predictable to me and again the visualization problems made it hard for me to really involve myself in the story and immerse myself in the world.

This book had the right idea, the execution just did not work for me. I'm sure they will be other people that love this book, I just could not get past the writing.

ARC provided by NetGalley

Phew. I am so relieved to be done with this book.

This was a classic case of great ideas, poor execution. For a book that was basically all action, it was so dull. I think this was because from page one, it moves at a cheetah's pace, never pausing for a breath so you can absorb anything about who the characters are, the intricacies of their motivations, or why you should care. As the main character, Sal, moved from action to action, I found myself constantly wondering WHY. Sal's main motivation was straightforward—revenge—but there was hardly any deep world-building or internal character monologue for me to feel empathetic. It often felt like the actions were driving the characters, rather than the other way around, which makes it very difficult for me to connect with a book. And I just really did not connect with this one.

The main reason I'm disappointed that I didn't enjoy this is because Sal is gender-fluid. I was so excited to read about a gender-fluid character in a young adult fantasy book, where gender nonconforming characters are rare (they're rare in books in general). I did like that Sal's gender identity was just a part of them, but not a major plot point of the book. But I wish gender identity and sexual orientation had been discussed as a part of the world-building more. Many of the characters accepted Sal's fluidity without a question, which made me think that it was not too uncommon in their world, but that's just my inference from tiny context clues. I wanted something more concrete. There is also some misgendering of Sal by an antagonist, so be aware of that if you plan to read this book.

The brisk, action-focused writing style and impenetrable characters made this a book that wasn't for me. I hope to see more fantasy books with gender nonconforming characters and queer-inclusive worlds in the future.