themadpoker

Finished my first book of the read-a-thon! It was interesting doing a reread for something I'd read so long ago. The politics were considerably less complex than I remembered them being which is probably due to my first reading this in middle school when I had less experience with these kind of books. Basic plot of the story follows Lucien, a boy with cancer transported from our world to Talia, an alternate universe sixteenth century Italy. While there he runs into Arianna, a girl illegally camped out in the city of Belazza pretending to be a boy so she can get herself hired as one of the city's gondoliers. This plan goes down the tubes when she sees Lucien and gives him her clothes so he won't be identified as the non-Belazzan he clearly is and be executed. Lucien ends up getting the gondolier position she was hoping for and from there they get entangled in city politics that involve lots of body doubles, murder, and sixteenth century mathematicians.

My favourite character of the book was the Duchessa, a ruthless clever politician who enjoys escaping murder plots and allowing the perpetrators to squirm uncomfortably for hours by not letting him know whether he's about to die or not. Other interests include tightly holding on to her secrets, thwarting the ambitions of certain political families plotting to take control of her city and generally knowing more about what's going on then at least half the cast at any given time. I cannot at all remember the plot of the next book in series, City of Stars, but I hope she makes a reappearance.

This is a definite step up from my last two reads in terms of not boring me out of my skull. The plot moved at a good pace and what romance there was did not consist of the hero trying to murder the heroine and her getting past that because of how pretty he is. Not that I'm accusing any of my recent reads of doing this. *cough*TheIronKing*cough* Plus whenever I wanted a break I could simply stare at the cover for a few minutes which is seriously one of the nicest I've seen in awhile. I probably won't be reading the sequel so quickly because the copy I have has the old cover which is okay but not nearly as pretty as the resdesign. All in all, a decent start to my day of books.

Plus now that I've finished City of Masks I've picked out a selection of eight books I'll be choosing my reading from for the rest of the day. My next review may be on:

Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness by Nahoko Uehashi
Wayfarer by R. J. Anderson
Along the River: A Chinese Cinderella Novel by Adeline Yen Mah
Standing for Socks by Elissa Brent Weissman
Forever Rose by Hilary McKay
Once Upon Stilettos by Shanna Swendson
Bakuman Volume 1 by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
Stravaganza: City of Stars by Mary Hoffman

I reserve the right to change my mind at any moment and pick some book not on this list at all! But I probably won't. :)