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.