DNF Review: These Vicious Masks with Gifs

These Vicious Masks (These Vicious Masks, 1) by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas, February 9, 2016. 298 pages. Published by Swoon Reads. Source: ARC from publisher.

England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they’re not the only ones looking for Rose. The reclusive, young gentleman Sebastian Braddock is also searching for her, claiming that both sisters have special healing powers. Evelyn is convinced that Sebastian must be mad, until she discovers that his strange tales of extraordinary people are true—and that her sister is in graver danger than she feared.

First Sentence

Death.

I am going to be blunt here- These Vicious Masks was so not for me! I barely made it through two pages before I had enough of it! I feel terrible that it failed to catch my attention; yet it seemed so much like a few books that I've read or DNF'd a few years back.

• Well, this was one of those times where the title is intriguing yet the book is, well, not attention catching in the least. The cover and title made it look so, so promising! Sadly, it just read like your typical young adult paranormal romance; and that was in just a page. UGH! I am so very disappointed!!

•  I tried really hard to give it a second chance after a few months. Which is why I only marked it as DNF recently. I thought perhaps I started it amidst a reading slump; nope, turns out it was not me at fault it was These Vicious Masks. 

• Time to be serious... What really did not work for me with These Vicious Masks was that it was boring as all get out. In just a few short passages, I was annoyed with the main character, don't even ask me her as I cannot remember, and just completely turned off with the writing. As well as the direction the story was going. Books like this leave me frustrated because whining drives me crazy! 

• I wanted to like it because it was supposed to be historical fiction meets fantasy, yet it just came across as a paranormal romance. I might have been able to read more of it if it were a) about the sister who disappeared as she sounded like the more interesting of the two or b) if it had started out differently. Even though I only read, maybe, two pages the story and writing were too one dimensional to draw me in. 

Final Verdict: These Vicious Masks- Too one dimensional and predictable. 

These Vicious Masks earns

An advanced copy of this book was received in consideration for review. All thoughts are my own.