"Masquerade" First Impressions *No Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

Come talk about your initial, general impressions!

Please save all discussion of particulars, details from the story, character choices, plot questions, etc. for the full spoiler thread.

Content warnings for those who want them: (view spoiler)[Violence, Death, Animal Death, Kidnapping, sexism, mention of rape, body horror including graphic description of injuries, bombing, kidnapping (hide spoiler)]

User-submitted content warnings on Storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/1...

(More about CWs here.)

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Starting it today.

[lanlynk]

Just finished the book a few days ago. For the first third to half of the story, I thought this might be a 5-star read for me. Then the story started getting grislier than I felt comfortable with. I think I understood what the author was trying to say with her mythic retelling of Persephone, but this was a barbaric take on life. Can't say more here--spoilers. Still, it was a powerful story. Intense though, graphic. Illustrative of the time period and culture?

[Kaia]

I'm about half-way through, and I'm definitely finding it to be very readable - it's hard not to read just one more chapter before bed. I'm reserving judgement for the end, as I'm still sorting out my feelings about it.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I quit. I got to page 134.

[Netanella]

I'm about halfway through the book and enjoying it so far. I certainly haven't read very many books set during this time period that weren't non-fiction, so I am finding this fascinating.

I have suspicions how this one will turn out, if it is true to the Persephone-Hades mythology.