The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After the events of The Invisible Library, Irene and Kai get assigned as librarian in residence in the same world that they kicked Alberict out of. Everything is going fine until Kai is kidnapped (dragon-napped?) by rogue fey. Irene must then go against library orders to chase him into chaos heavy fey territory with no support in order to rescue him.

It felt a little like Cogman wanted to underscore two points. 1st - The main character is Irene, so don’t get too attached to Kai or Vale or any of the other characters. 2nd -Irene isn’t a “good” guy. She’s a book thief and a covert operative. She is also deeply principled. She chases Kai because she is responsible for him...so, she says. She alienates almost everyone in the process.

Part of what really worked in The Invisible Library was the interaction between Kai and Irene. So, having the two separated for the most of the book was a little disappointing. In fact, I missed Vale too even though he gets annoyingly self-righteous. I think Masked City did a good job at fleshing out the rest of the universe and filled out out the major players in the rest of setting, but did it at the expense of the main characters. From a pragmatic point of view, Cogman succeed in laying the groundwork for a series of conflicts and a whole cast of allies and antagonist. So, while I’m not as gooey eyed over this one, it’s worth the read and I’m looking forward to the series continuing.


View all my reviews