Saturday 23 July 2022

BOOKS | Review: The Mask Falling by Samantha Shannon

Name: The Mask Falling (The Bone Season series #4)

Author: Samantha Shannon

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Date published: January 2021

Genre: Fiction, adult, fantasy, science fiction, dystopian, paranormal, urban fantasy

Pages: 528

Rating: 4/5

 

Dreamwalker Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between those factions that seek Scion's downfall and those who would kill to protect the Rephaim's puppet empire.
The mysterious Domino Program has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With Arcturus Mesarthim - her former enemy - at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles. Her risks promise high reward: the Parisian underworld could yield the means to escalate her rebellion to outright war.
As Scion widens its bounds and the free world trembles in its shadow, Paige must fight her own memories after her ordeal at the hands of Scion. Meanwhile, she strives to understand her bond with Arcturus, which grows stronger by the day. But there are those who know the revolution began with them - and could end with them...

- From Goodreads.

I really loved the descriptions of Paris in this book, it was a wonderful place to set the book and all the details were so well written and nicely placed in the story. I love it when a setting feels like a character in a book, London felt really alive in the previous books and Paris felt just as full of soul in this one too.

Sometimes it did feel like things were done to make the plot move forward, rather than because it made sense for the world or characters. For example, mostly I did agree with Paige's decisions, or at least understood them, but a couple of times it almost felt like she did things because the plot needed her to, and it did not match what she would do given her experience and what she had learnt in the previous books. But this only happened a small amount of times and it did not ruin my enjoyment of the story too much.

I liked that Paige felt the effects of the things that happened to her, both physically and mentally, how that was acknowledged and how she needed to take the time to recover and feel stronger again, and even when she felt better she was still affected by the memories of what had happened. I really felt all of her emotions around that and thought it was written very well.

The story continued to be unpredictable, as all the other books in the series have been so far. There were plot twists and surprises from beginning to end and it certainly kept me intrigued and trying to solve the mysteries all the way through. I liked that there were different layers to the story and different plot threads and storylines taking place at the same time, it was all woven together very intricately.

The ending of the book was especially well done, plot twist after plot twist, all completely surprising, with an epic finalé that suddenly appeared to leave you shocked and stunned. It was nothing I could have expected and it was thrilling to read.

Overall, even though there were a few small moments I had problems with, it was still an incredibly impressive book that answered so many questions that the previous books had asked while also setting up so many potential pathways for the rest of the series. I am so curious to see what will happen in the rest of the books and I am sure Samantha Shannon will continue to surprise me as she has already amazed me so much so far.

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