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A review by agoldendear
Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller
Did not finish book.
I got about a third of the way into this book and couldn't convince myself to continue. Mainly I did not like this author's writing style and I found the world-building to be confusing and not properly explained. I had to reread the introduction to the war that happened so many times because I was confused. I also didn't particularly like the main character, Sal, or understand who they were as a person.
I was interested in the fact that this book has a nonbinary main character, but I think that the book treats gender weirdly--particularly how Sal gets upset whenever someone misgenders them (even when someone calls Sal "they" when they don't know Sal's gender) but then it's fine for Sal to assume everyone else's gender when describing them. (I know it might be clunky to have Sal go around and ask everyone for their gender, but still.) Also, Sal assumes that everyone will be able to perfectly gender them correctly based on the clothes they're wearing (such as expecting she/her pronouns when wearing a dress), which doesn't make any sense.
Finally, I found myself struggling to connect with the characters when most of them were numbered instead of having names. Maybe some of them get names later on, but I kept forgetting who was who, and I wasn't sure which ones were the most important for me to remember.
I was interested in the fact that this book has a nonbinary main character, but I think that the book treats gender weirdly--particularly how Sal gets upset whenever someone misgenders them (even when someone calls Sal "they" when they don't know Sal's gender) but then it's fine for Sal to assume everyone else's gender when describing them. (I know it might be clunky to have Sal go around and ask everyone for their gender, but still.) Also, Sal assumes that everyone will be able to perfectly gender them correctly based on the clothes they're wearing (such as expecting she/her pronouns when wearing a dress), which doesn't make any sense.
Finally, I found myself struggling to connect with the characters when most of them were numbered instead of having names. Maybe some of them get names later on, but I kept forgetting who was who, and I wasn't sure which ones were the most important for me to remember.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence