The Masque of the Red Death - Bethany Griffin

'The charcoal sky spits cold
rain as we rumble to a stop at
a crossroad.'

Rated 1.5/10

A devastating plague has decimated the population. And those who survived live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles to pieces around them... Araby may find something not just to live for, but to fight for - no matter what it costs her.

My thoughts: I know that this book has had some positive reviews, and I also know that it is heavily influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's drama with the same name - but I just couldn't get on with it.

This is a YA novel, and so there will be inevitable romance and angst as a result, but the protagonist is a whiny teen with absolutely no endearing qualities about her whatsoever; And yet she is at the centre of a heated love triangle (of which I won't go into detail due to spoilers). Araby punishes herself due to her twin brother's death by supposedly never experiencing the things that he will never get to experience in life - and yet here she is in the centre of a club taking drugs and drinking quite casually. This is one of the many plot holes that I just couldn't get my head around.

The coherence of the novel is barely there - it rambles on irritatingly in 1st person, present tense using a myriad of very short sentences and utterances...

And so many unanswered questions! Why can't you catch the airborne plague when you're indoors? the air in a room is completely refreshed on average every two hours, even if all doors and windows are closed. Why do girls wear 'negligible' dresses despite the fact that pretty much every 'penniless' man is horny and dangerous, and it's so cold all the time? Would the need to be safe not outweigh the fashion of showing off you have no plague? And so on.

Not a single strong female character was present throughout the whole book either, not great for the young female teen audience that this book is aimed at.

The motives and actions of the antagonists also did not make sense to me but again, not going to reveal due to spoilers.

This book did survive my scrutiny right until the final sentence however, and I did finish the whole thing. Although it is not to my tastes, I know that others will enjoy it. If you want a really good YA novel that does everything that this one doesn't, then check out 5th Wave by Rick Yancey.