Silvia 's Reviews > Masks

I was sent this book as an advance copy by the publisher via NetGalley for reviewing purposes, but all opinions are my own.

DNF @ 38%

Yeah no I can't even finish this for the roast, but roast it I shall.

Listen, LISTEN. I don't care if your book is a short story or if's 500-pages long. Let me tell you about fanfiction writers! They do amazing shit in 1k? 10k? 20k words. They write breathtaking characterization and dialogue, they steal your heart, make you feel every range of every human emotion, give you a new perspective in life. That is not to say that every fanfiction writer can do that, but many do, and this is not about fanfiction vs original fiction but it's about THE LENGTH of a story, which I've learned DOES NOT influence the depth with which you can show your characters.

TL;DR so far: writing a short story doesn't excuse you or allow you to make your characters shallow and boring af.

But that's what this was.

So, supposedly this is a supervillain VS superhero story with a LGBT turn (I didn't get there but let me tell you I can 100% already see the ending and if someone has read this to the end please DM me and we'll see if I'm right). It's also told from the supervillain's POV, which sounds really interesting in theory right? Too bad this supervillain is a compendium of EVERY bad main character trope.

✓ not like other guys
✓ nobody understands me
✓ supernatural power
✓ who knows why or how I have this power
✓ but who cares lmao
✓ also I'm sure I'm the only one with something like this
✓ also!!!!!!!!
✓ in case you haven't noticed, I'm weird
✓ I'm a weirdo
✓ I don't fit it
✓ I don't wanna fit in

THAT'S LITERALLY THE MAIN CHARACTER Y'ALL.

Then of course he's forced to share a lab table with some guy and OH I ALMOST FORGOT the MC character goes on a ridiculous "he told me his name but who the fuck knows how to spell that??? oh he gave me his number WHICH I DON'T WANT ANYWAY but let me save it under 'C' until I know how the rest of his name is spelled" and then he randomly finds out and he's like "oh so that's how you write it" LIKE that's such a stupidly cliched YA moment and it adds nothing to the story???? You could have used that page time to literally do anything else LIKE GIVE SOME DEPTH TO THE MAIN GUY FFS.

Anyway yeah so this other guy is super annoying, can't take a fucking hint that the main guy (I forgot their names y'all) Doesn't Want To Fit In let alone make any friends, so he just pesters him around college and oh boy the cringe.

Right also the MC is a supervillain ok? HE'S AN ARSONIST mhm great he spends a lot of page time thinking how pretty fire is and mh can you not, and thEN HE MEETS the superhero (oh did I tell you he got himself a cape and a mask,,,) whose superhero name is, wait for it, FALCON, which is all like "I'MMA STOP YA RIGHT THERE" and they throw punches or something? I zoned out tbh, anyway then it cuts to the next morning and the MC is like "after a good night's sleep", and that's the point where I fucking lost it because come on if you want me to feel sympathetic with a fucking arsonist you have to at least show me,, I'm not talking about remorse but!!!! something!!!!!! Not a good fucking night's sleep.

Anyway no bye too bad cuz the cover is pretty.