The Homecoming Masquerade (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
First of all, I’d say with this book – ignore the blurb. It makes the book sound more cliché than it is and really doesn’t give a general idea of what the story’s about. This is not a romance despite the stereotypical cover and initial impressions. This is, in fact, a dystopia set in a world where vampires pretty much rule everything and only a small resistance group of humans called the Network have a chance of overturning the balance. This event is geared to coincide with another – that of the Homecoming ball where select girls who dress in black are entered into a competition to gain an immortal’s favour and so earn the right to become one themselves. Enter Nicky Bloom, agent of the Network and now a girl in black – but things aren’t nearly so simple as winning the competition means gaining supporters both human and immortal and the loser will inevitably be eaten by the winner.This is the first book in the ‘Girls Wearing Black’ series and for me, The Homecoming Masquerade was something of a mixed bag. The actual story did prove itself to be more interesting than my initial impressions of the blurb had presented, but there was also a great deal of problems that really stopped me from liking this book more. The writing style for one put me off almost immediately. It just felt off, like there was no real imagination put into it and was riddled with cliché after cliché. If I turned my brain off for a while it was passable as an easy, light read but if you’re looking to read a book with truly admirable prose, this really isn’t the one you’ll want to read. Most of the characters are initially presented as extremely shallow and two-dimensional bar our dual female protagonists, Nicky and Jill. Although, some of the supporting cast thankfully did receive some development later on this really didn’t help much as it was a case of too little, too late. So much of the book was about our protagonist’s “networking” the ball which really equated to manipulation. Their goal throughout was clearly just to twist as many people to their ends as possible and though in another’s hands this may have come across as pulling off some suave con a la ‘Hustle’, in this case it came across as plain hurtful. Seeing how scornful the protagonists were of many of their intended victims, reducing many to simply a list of blackmail points really didn’t help me warm towards them much and though there was some emotion eventually dragged up, the damage for me had already been done. Instead, I felt more sorry for the people caught in the crossfire like Annika.I didn’t hate the two protagonists, neither did I find them annoying but both came across pretty bland with only massive flashbacks awkwardly inserted to explain more about them and their actions to this point. Jill at least, was shown to have flaws and so came across a more realistic. The pacing was far too slow for most of the book as well, which hindered a lot of the plot advancing.The good points though are definitely in the dystopian elements seen throughout, and unfortunately might have made for a better book if they’d taken more of role. I still fail to see how the whole world accepted the vampire’s control system so easily, to be honest, but I’ll let it pass for now. The vampire mythology interested me too, with its use of bonds and making them seem more animalistic. Despite its flaws, this book did keep me hooked until the end because I did want to know what the final result would be. The eventual conclusion felt more like an anti-climax than anything unfortunately and didn’t really payoff for all of the tension built up. Still, there was some interesting groundwork laid out for the sequel with hints of Nicky’s past and her apparent resistance to vampiric mind control being introduced. Other subplots were dropped all together though such as with Nicky’s friend/love interest who may appear again in a later book, but whose plot was basically pushed aside in this one. The book did manage to surprise me at times though with some of its twists and it did work well as some light reading – it’s probably something I’d have appreciated more in my younger years when I was less discerning. I probably won’t be carrying on the series (which apparently has four books in total at the current time of this review), but I hope that the sequel manages to iron out some of this book’s flaws as there’s certainly potential for a good dystopia if so. I struggled to finish it, and skipped impressive amounts of descriptions / inner monologues / useless trivia. As I saw it, about 85% of this book could have been removed and the story would have been more fluid and entertaining. The characters felt older than teens, none had a specific voice, none were very likeable (as soon as I thought "I like this girl" the author managed to add some new twist in her personality and make me go "bleah"). The immortals acted like a bunch of hyper stupid children, not inteligent, cunning, filthy rich immortal beings that were once raised into enough wealth as to make them 18 yo highly inteligent, manipulative, educated high school graduates. The main character, Nicky I think, was so bipolar it gave me wiplash. She managed to fondle and grope and flirt with at least 5 boys / men in a few hours and had time to develop feelings for one of them after casually knowing him for 2 weeks, as the extent that she ACTUALLY considered running away with him!!My problem is that I can't simply stop and delete a book after a few pages, I have to know how it ends ... it was an ordeal, and not even the "perfect" vampire, who was supposed to be the main focus of this entire book, only described and talked about in 3 pages our of 400 managed to snag my attention. And me, I'm a sucker for a cute vampire ! :p
What do You think about The Homecoming Masquerade (2012)?
A surprise book to find. It was a great read and had me downloading the next one right away!
—Lildezy
I liked it ok. The Homecoming Masquerade is a fun read, if not terribly meaningful.
—Carrie
I'm sorry, I just thought it dragged on forever and was all background.
—kara
