The Masque of Red Death is a different take of Edgar Allen Poe's short story.
-I myself didn't know he had wrote the original until i was told by my nan.

I have only read to chapter 11 of this book by Bethany Grifin, partly because after finding out it was a remake i decided to read the original which was darker and shorter yet somehow far better than what i read of this book.

Firstly where Edgar Allen Poe succeeds in keeping my interest this version lacked that grab, which is actually why i decided to read the original to see if it were any better.

anyway all comparisons aside, this book from what i read merely uses Poes version as a guide line, the main character Araby wasn't really a person i felt i could grow to like, she puts her family in danger for the sake of some guy named Elliot and she just seems so....immature?

I am not rating the story due to having not finished it, but what Griffin has made into a 300 novel Poe has surpassed in a possible 10 pages.

There are good things about this book -- but here are the things I just couldn't get my head around:

Dippy, drugged out girl -- fine.

Consumed with guilt -- well, maybe? But it's just never that convincing.

2 heartthrobs, 1 likable, 1 not -- who are always mysteriously appearing wherever the girl is whenever she's done with whatever she was doing. Is this meant to be part of the drugged out portrayal, so she has no sense of time? Or to emphasize her feelings of powerlessness?

Plague plague plaguey plague -- oooookay. You like Poe, we understand.

eh. It wasn't a bad book, but I find myself irritated beyond reason at the loose running plot. Perhaps if it were a movie I would like it more. It seems inevitable to me that there will be a sequel. Thank goodness I don't care enough about the characters to read it. ( )

Okay, so this book was okay, but not great. The characters were likeable, for the most part, and the plot had potential, but the main character was in love with two guys, which, has totally been done, not original at all. Then there was the total cliffhanger. It cut off right as the plot was actually starting to resemble Edgar Allen Poe's story. Which was the main reason I read this book. Also, I got this book free from the Goodreads First Reads, so I felt I had too. All in all, the book is an okay read, if you like doom and gloom, but I wouldn't advise reading it. At least until the sequel comes out (trust me, there will be one), because then you can just jump into the next book. Which I might do. Probably not. ( )

I’ve got some mixed feelings about Masque of the Red Death. On the one hand, it’s this beautiful, decaying steampunk world. This is a retelling, as you may have guessed, of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” short story. It’s takes this devastating contagion and casts a spotlight on the masked faces of the selfish upper class dancing while the city burns, essentially.

But I think… I think I wanted this book to be something it wasn’t, which resulted in my explaining away a lot of it. Trying to make excuses. Trying to make it a better book than it was.

More than anything, I think Masque of the Red Death spent too much time telling me about the world Telling me Araby’s past. Telling me how she felt about Will or Elliott. This type of writing creates a bland palate, rather than richly painting a world that the reader can fall into. The richness of this plague-ridden steampunk work? There’s a lot of blank imagery I filled in with my own imagination. Even as we are told that there are mutant bats and the city is crumbling, we aren’t really shown the city.

Part of this is because we spend so much time in Araby’s thoughts. She’s not allowed to develop as a character and make a mark on the story, because she is constantly being held up as a resource to one of the other characters. Araby is less Araby and more… Finn’s sister. April’s friend. Elliott’s resource. Will’s provider. Her father’s daughter. Never is she left to develop herself and show what she wants or she feels, because Araby’s asides are caught in one of the flattest love triangles I’ve ever seen, and in memories of her family.

I’m not sure how best to address this greyscale presentation of the story. On one hand, things moved along just fine, but on the other hand… I kept asking myself, “Why?” Why did Elliott care about her, why was it so easy for her to do things. Why did people keep saving this otherwise unremarkable girl. Araby just… didn’t fit in this world. As a protagonist, she wasn’t very interesting, because she very rarely shared any opinions or passion.

While the trajectory of the story was fairly easy to guess, so little is revealed about it. It’s relatively cliche, although I wasn’t quite expecting the evolution of the Red Death itself. I felt like a lot more could have been developed to show the grotesquery of the world and that Araby herself could have reached for more information or to put things into motion. A lot of time was spent on Finn, the deceased twin who ultimately had no part to play in the story outside the impression he left on Araby and her parents. And while grief and mourning is important, his use never felt like that… just an obstacle to the love story. Ultimately, he ended up being an obstacle to the story in general, because he stole so much screen time for so little reward.

As a whole, Masque of the Red Death was an interesting mood read. There’s a volcano of potential waiting to erupt, edges of a story not quite refined enough to capture the reader. I love that this is a Poe retelling and I would read other ones like it, but not with any sense of urgency. It’s a good quick, casual read, but nothing to get overly excited about. One of those books you read, are fascinated by a few pretty passages, and then forget. ( )

Around page 50, I was talking to my sister about this book and telling her that this book better pick up soon or I might quit on it. (There's just way too many books in my stack for my to waste my time on a book I'm not enjoying). A little bit later, I was on page 103 and I knew I was going to be up until I finished the book. Somewhere in between, the action and story had caught up and got to going good and I was loving it. The mystery is so convoluted in this book. What is the plague? How did it come to be? Who can be trusted? Who can't be trusted? (And the answer to that question will surprise you). When I finished Masque of the Red Death, I was ready to start the next book. So I say give this book a try and STICK IT OUT! I know it starts off slow but it definitely picks up and is not the same old story that's being told over and over. It's new and refreshing. ( )