Shaykitteh's World of Books

And yet another book is added to my DNF pile..

I loved the cover of Masque of the Red Death and picked it up at the library. It starts out with an interesting premise: After a disease/virus kills off a good part of the population, Araby finds herself in a penthouse suite due to the fact that her father is the inventor of masks that filter the poisoned air. Unfortunately, only the rich can easily afford the masks so plenty of people are still dying, even as they have hope to save up for a mask.

How does Araby spend her time in this book? Her daytime hours are spent drowning in survivor's guilt and her evenings are spent in a misnamed nightclub getting high in a quest to yet again forget her survivor's guilt. And why is she guilty? Because she used the first mask that her father created and then her twin brother dies of the contagion. Of course, if he had used the first mask instead of Araby, who knows if she would have died... from my understanding of the book, the mask only helps keep you from getting sick in the first place but if you've already caught the plague you're going to die no matter what, so Araby's brother couldn't have been infected already and she would have had no way of knowing.

But you know, bringing sense into this book would destroy it apparently.

Speaking of senseless things... they have masks, and yet the people in the book seem to have no issue taking the masks off - even outside - to kiss each other.

The other main issue that I have with this story is the useless love triangle. You have Will, the nice-seeming club bouncer who takes care of his younger siblings, and then you have Elliott, the spoiled & selfish nephew of the prince who treats Araby like crap. Araby seems drawn to the bad boy even though she was drooling over Will's tattoos and pretty face earlier in the book, but yet she doesn't even want to hold anyone's hand due to the promise she made on her brother's grave to have absolutely no fun and no life since he died. Because I'm sure that's what he would have wanted.

And there you have my uncensored opinion of this book... read if you wish, but beware the feeling of your brain cells slowly dying as you attempt to figure out why you're supposed to care about anyone or anything in this book!