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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
I really liked Masquerade. There's a sense of mystery for most of the book, and I really liked that. We know that Heven has an accident, which left her with some pretty nasty scars, but what no one knows is what happened. Until the end, of course, when we learn about who attacked and why they did it.
I loved the chapters where we see "the hate" and "the hope." You know they're the one's who know about what happened to Cambria, and while the hope, who turns out to be Sam, is totally obvious, it worked really well.
One of the things I loved was that Sam is a hellhound. Definitely cool, and I liked that Heven is a Supernatural Treasure. Of course, Sam has to protect her, and they are given a mission that they'll complete in the books to come, which isn't a big surprise. But it's also a pretty original idea, and I can't wait to see if they complete the task that's been given to them.
I wish we had more glimpses of Heven's life before. It's referred to, but we don't actually see it. Still, we do get just enough to see how things play out.
I thought the characters were interesting, although I don't particularly care for Heven's mom or her friend Kimbra. Her grandma is pretty awesome. As for Sam and Cole's dislike of each other...I think there's more to this, and I'm not sure why.
No story is complete without romance, and I really liked it. More than I expected, considering that it was fairly predictable. But I still really liked it, and they are cute together.
Masquerade gets a 4 out of 5. It is predictable but I really enjoyed it because I loved Sam as a hellhound and Heven as a Supernatural Treasure.
I loved the chapters where we see "the hate" and "the hope." You know they're the one's who know about what happened to Cambria, and while the hope, who turns out to be Sam, is totally obvious, it worked really well.
One of the things I loved was that Sam is a hellhound. Definitely cool, and I liked that Heven is a Supernatural Treasure. Of course, Sam has to protect her, and they are given a mission that they'll complete in the books to come, which isn't a big surprise. But it's also a pretty original idea, and I can't wait to see if they complete the task that's been given to them.
I wish we had more glimpses of Heven's life before. It's referred to, but we don't actually see it. Still, we do get just enough to see how things play out.
I thought the characters were interesting, although I don't particularly care for Heven's mom or her friend Kimbra. Her grandma is pretty awesome. As for Sam and Cole's dislike of each other...I think there's more to this, and I'm not sure why.
No story is complete without romance, and I really liked it. More than I expected, considering that it was fairly predictable. But I still really liked it, and they are cute together.
Masquerade gets a 4 out of 5. It is predictable but I really enjoyed it because I loved Sam as a hellhound and Heven as a Supernatural Treasure.
I would give this a 4.5/5. This book was pretty intense and amazing. Its hard to even believe how much happened. I cant believe it was only 360 pages. It felt like so much more! When I think back to how things were in the beginning of the book, when Heven was hiding behind her hair and her hood, and that first conversation she and Sam had in the school cafeteria, it feels like years ago.
At first, I was a little hesitant to accept Sam since he was totally stalking Heven for like a year, and that is totally creepy. But eventually I had to let it go and accept him, and even admit its part of what made the book so good. Sam was totally sweet and not dangerous. Realistically, psychologically, I dont know if it is possible for a stalker to not be dangerous, but this is a book, and a great one at that. Sam's utter love for Heven and need to protect and be near her was very consuming, not only for him but as a reader. And it just made me all the more happy to see them together, to know how much it meant to Sam, and to know how long he must have been dreaming of nothing else.
The first part of the book reminded me of [b:Nevermore|7129598|Nevermore (Nevermore, #1)|Kelly Creagh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1294381693l/7129598._SY75_.jpg|7391743] because of the high school setting, the sweet romance, and the subtle supernatural undertones. But once Heven found out what Sam was, things got more intense, with the story, the romance, and the supernatural elements. Without secrets between them it made their relationship so much more real. I was a little disappointed how Heven freaked out at first, but she forgave him fairly quickly. This was also around the same time she started living with her grandmother, which meant they had so much more time together, and they grew so much closer without the secrets or Heven's mother in the way. And they totally had a couple of hot make-out scenes that I was really hoping were gonna turn into something else, but they didnt have the opportunity in this book. But still, those scenes were hot and I am totally gonna reread them a bunch of times.
At first, I was a little hesitant to accept Sam since he was totally stalking Heven for like a year, and that is totally creepy. But eventually I had to let it go and accept him, and even admit its part of what made the book so good. Sam was totally sweet and not dangerous. Realistically, psychologically, I dont know if it is possible for a stalker to not be dangerous, but this is a book, and a great one at that. Sam's utter love for Heven and need to protect and be near her was very consuming, not only for him but as a reader. And it just made me all the more happy to see them together, to know how much it meant to Sam, and to know how long he must have been dreaming of nothing else.
The first part of the book reminded me of [b:Nevermore|7129598|Nevermore (Nevermore, #1)|Kelly Creagh|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1294381693l/7129598._SY75_.jpg|7391743] because of the high school setting, the sweet romance, and the subtle supernatural undertones. But once Heven found out what Sam was, things got more intense, with the story, the romance, and the supernatural elements. Without secrets between them it made their relationship so much more real. I was a little disappointed how Heven freaked out at first, but she forgave him fairly quickly. This was also around the same time she started living with her grandmother, which meant they had so much more time together, and they grew so much closer without the secrets or Heven's mother in the way. And they totally had a couple of hot make-out scenes that I was really hoping were gonna turn into something else, but they didnt have the opportunity in this book. But still, those scenes were hot and I am totally gonna reread them a bunch of times.
Our hero and heroine, Heven and Sam, are so refreshing. I haven’t read a book in this age group for a while, but I’m hooked. I couldn’t get enough. Even though this young couple is surrounded by so much evil, their love is so pure, and sweet, and innocent. It’s been a pleasure to see Heven’s development just from the prequel, Before. You watch her, and Sam find purpose in their existence. The villains are out of this world and a shifty new character on the scene has me intrigued. I am keeping my on Miss Bestie as well. Headed off to the next one, Charade.
Based on the other reviews on the site, I seem to be in the minority, but I really, really didn't like this book. I couldn't make myself care about the characters and the story itself was just too random for my liking. It felt like it was all over the place - lots of halfway decent ideas jammed into one book.
Oh well. Moving on.
Oh well. Moving on.
Masquerade is full of twists and turns. It kept you on your toes from the first page and left you wanting more with the last. I can't wait to be able to read the rest of this series. The characters Sam and Heven were amazing, you immediately fall in love with them and hope for the very best.
Heven was beautiful, captain of the Cheer leading team, couldn't be any happier til one night scared her for life. Now having to look over heard shoulder, she fears there is something else out there to get her. If only she could remember what happened the night that changed everything. When Sam walks into her life, she immediately feels connected to him, he makes her feel beautiful in no way anyone has made her feel before.
This series is full of drama real life and fantasy, it keeps you in a trance like no other. Sam and Heven take you on a journey like none before. With danger lurking around every corner this is for sure going to be epic!
Heven was beautiful, captain of the Cheer leading team, couldn't be any happier til one night scared her for life. Now having to look over heard shoulder, she fears there is something else out there to get her. If only she could remember what happened the night that changed everything. When Sam walks into her life, she immediately feels connected to him, he makes her feel beautiful in no way anyone has made her feel before.
This series is full of drama real life and fantasy, it keeps you in a trance like no other. Sam and Heven take you on a journey like none before. With danger lurking around every corner this is for sure going to be epic!
Holy freakin' hell!! This book was INCREDIBLE!! Cambria Hebert, you are good!! You are so, damn good!! From the very first page, to the very last page, this book was filled with so much awesome!! And that includes the gorgeous cover!! Absolutely stunning!!
None of us are perfect!! We all have flaws. Some are visible to the world and others are hidden for no one else to see. But they are there! We know that they're there. Heven hides from the world. She buries herself under her hair and her hoodies. All of her former confidence is gone. And then she meets Sam and he shows her that she is so worthy of being loved. The depth with which he loves her is amazing and beautiful. His need to protect and love and care for her never falters. But Sam has secrets!! Secrets that will rock Heven!!
Masquerade is told from both Heven and Sam's point of view. But interspersed with that are the voices of HATE and HOPE. Normally when I read a book, I love nothing more that reading the males POV, but I really couldn't say that with this book. As much as I adored reading Sam's POV, every voice was just as good and just as integral to the story. And every voice induced different feelings, thoughts and emotions.
This book is packed with action, suspense, love, growth and self discovery!! I would recommend this book to everyone!! I am completely and utterly hooked on this series!! I am completely and utterly hooked on Cambria Heberts writing!! Cannot wait to read more!!
None of us are perfect!! We all have flaws. Some are visible to the world and others are hidden for no one else to see. But they are there! We know that they're there. Heven hides from the world. She buries herself under her hair and her hoodies. All of her former confidence is gone. And then she meets Sam and he shows her that she is so worthy of being loved. The depth with which he loves her is amazing and beautiful. His need to protect and love and care for her never falters. But Sam has secrets!! Secrets that will rock Heven!!
Masquerade is told from both Heven and Sam's point of view. But interspersed with that are the voices of HATE and HOPE. Normally when I read a book, I love nothing more that reading the males POV, but I really couldn't say that with this book. As much as I adored reading Sam's POV, every voice was just as good and just as integral to the story. And every voice induced different feelings, thoughts and emotions.
This book is packed with action, suspense, love, growth and self discovery!! I would recommend this book to everyone!! I am completely and utterly hooked on this series!! I am completely and utterly hooked on Cambria Heberts writing!! Cannot wait to read more!!
Ok, well, I'm going to be brutally honest. I really didn't like this TO BEGIN WITH. It started out really promising, but then got really dull, I don't know why it just did. The relationship between Heven and Sam was extremely rushed, . I just found it a bit unrealistic. Also, the fact that he was a bit of a stalker.
However, it improved. The relationship between Sam and Heven did develop into something more realistic (although, I'm assuming she was incapable of fastening her own seatbelt, because he seemed to do it for her an awful lot.), and there was a lot of character development that improved the characters for me and made them more likeable and believable.
A brownie point goes to Hebert for making Hevens reaction to finding out what Sam realistic. Although, they made up pretty quickly, so...
Anyway, a good plot and story, good pace-ish (It got a bit dull towards the middle) and a good writing style. So I ended up liking this book more than I originally had.
Spoiler
like she had two brief encounters with him and ditched her friends for himHowever, it improved. The relationship between Sam and Heven did develop into something more realistic (although, I'm assuming she was incapable of fastening her own seatbelt, because he seemed to do it for her an awful lot.), and there was a lot of character development that improved the characters for me and made them more likeable and believable.
A brownie point goes to Hebert for making Hevens reaction to finding out what Sam realistic. Although, they made up pretty quickly, so...
Anyway, a good plot and story, good pace-ish (It got a bit dull towards the middle) and a good writing style. So I ended up liking this book more than I originally had.
Bullet Review:
DNF @ 10% or Chapter 4.
Good god, how many of these sh!tty books are there? Where the plot is basically:
Teenaged Girl (with ridiculous name) + Internal DWAMA + Hot Abs that Just Moved to Town + High School DWAMA + Sassy Best Friend + Just Enough Paranormal to Get the Right Amazon Tags
Add in an LKH level of clothing descriptions, and I'm done. My life is too short to waste with this carbon copy schlock and no level of completism or bullying from fans is going to make me push myself to finish crap like this.
DNF @ 10% or Chapter 4.
Good god, how many of these sh!tty books are there? Where the plot is basically:
Teenaged Girl (with ridiculous name) + Internal DWAMA + Hot Abs that Just Moved to Town + High School DWAMA + Sassy Best Friend + Just Enough Paranormal to Get the Right Amazon Tags
Add in an LKH level of clothing descriptions, and I'm done. My life is too short to waste with this carbon copy schlock and no level of completism or bullying from fans is going to make me push myself to finish crap like this.
This was a great read! I really liked the characters. Heven and Sam are perfect together :)
Cant wait till the next one to see where some of the characters are going (Kimber,Cole)
Cant wait till the next one to see where some of the characters are going (Kimber,Cole)
This review was originally posted on my blog, Literary Exploration
I heard Cambria Hebert was hosting a blog tour for her book Masquerade and immediately sent her an email asking to join. This book sounded awesome when I first heard about it, and it was on my Goodreads TBR list for a few weeks, so I was stoked when she sent me an e-copy for review. I was not disappointed! This book had action, adventure, romance, and paranormal elements galore! The first half of the book kept me in total suspense, asking questions like, "Where did Heven get those scars?" "What is Sam?" "Why is Heven's mom so crazy?!" (she's a nutcase, but I won't dwell on it). I have to admit, some things had me a little annoyed. The insta-love between Sam and Heven was the worst of it. You all know how I feel about the insta-love. I was immediately transported back a few years to my time reading Twilight, so obviously lovers of that series will enjoy this one! Overall, it was a great book and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one!
The characters were pretty hard to relate too, but they did grow a lot during the story. At first Heven is pretty whiney and reminds me of a certain shiny vamp-lover. I actually wanted to reach into the book and punch her because she was so annoying sometimes. She does mature a lot, however, and by the end I actually enjoyed her a lot more. Sam isn't as swoon-worthy as I like them, but he's definitely an alpha. He tends to baby Heven a lot though, constantly saying, "That's my girl" when she does something even remotely positive. Like she's a dog and he's training her for a show or something. Their relationship drove me a little nuts, they were way too engrossed in each other and spent too much time fawning over each other's looks and ignoring other people. By the end of the story though, I felt like I liked them a lot more, and actually wanted to keep reading to find out where their relationship was headed. Kimber, Heven's best friend is literally the epitome of a frenemy. She's pretty much the worst kind of person. She's constantly belittling Heven, and is even jealous of her! She's jealous of a girl who has scars covering half her face!! If that's not the definition of selfish witch then I don't know what is. Yeah, I really hated her. But now I'm ranting...
The story itself was awesome, and I felt like a lot happened in only 300 pages. Basically Sam is some crazy paranormal creature, I won't ruin the surprise for you, but it's defintely not something you're going to be used to. I loved how long it took to find out what he is too, I kept turning pages thinking, "When am I going to find out what Sam is?!" And when I finally did it was like a, "SAY WHAT?!" moment. As for the romance, that's pretty annoying and I wish there was more sexy time *sigh* but Sam and Heven eventually grew on me, and I found them somewhat cute by the end. There are a lot of action and fighting scenes which were so fun to read, I actually found myself tuning everything out in order to hear about torn body parts and bloody limbs. YES! Finally a paranormal YA with bloody limbs!!! This was by far my favorite part of the whole book.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this one, but I had too many qualms with it to fully imerse myself in the story at one time. It took awhile to get through it, because I found myself either getting bored, annoyed, or frustrated from time to time. About half way through, I felt like things really started to pick up, and I was able to enjoy a lot more of what was happening, and I'm so glad I got to read this one. I'm definitely looking forward to what happens next, it's going to be AWESOME, I can already tell! If you're a fan of paranormal, romance, action, and bloody limbs you're going to love Masquerade!
I heard Cambria Hebert was hosting a blog tour for her book Masquerade and immediately sent her an email asking to join. This book sounded awesome when I first heard about it, and it was on my Goodreads TBR list for a few weeks, so I was stoked when she sent me an e-copy for review. I was not disappointed! This book had action, adventure, romance, and paranormal elements galore! The first half of the book kept me in total suspense, asking questions like, "Where did Heven get those scars?" "What is Sam?" "Why is Heven's mom so crazy?!" (she's a nutcase, but I won't dwell on it). I have to admit, some things had me a little annoyed. The insta-love between Sam and Heven was the worst of it. You all know how I feel about the insta-love. I was immediately transported back a few years to my time reading Twilight, so obviously lovers of that series will enjoy this one! Overall, it was a great book and I can't wait to get my hands on the next one!
The characters were pretty hard to relate too, but they did grow a lot during the story. At first Heven is pretty whiney and reminds me of a certain shiny vamp-lover. I actually wanted to reach into the book and punch her because she was so annoying sometimes. She does mature a lot, however, and by the end I actually enjoyed her a lot more. Sam isn't as swoon-worthy as I like them, but he's definitely an alpha. He tends to baby Heven a lot though, constantly saying, "That's my girl" when she does something even remotely positive. Like she's a dog and he's training her for a show or something. Their relationship drove me a little nuts, they were way too engrossed in each other and spent too much time fawning over each other's looks and ignoring other people. By the end of the story though, I felt like I liked them a lot more, and actually wanted to keep reading to find out where their relationship was headed. Kimber, Heven's best friend is literally the epitome of a frenemy. She's pretty much the worst kind of person. She's constantly belittling Heven, and is even jealous of her! She's jealous of a girl who has scars covering half her face!! If that's not the definition of selfish witch then I don't know what is. Yeah, I really hated her. But now I'm ranting...
The story itself was awesome, and I felt like a lot happened in only 300 pages. Basically Sam is some crazy paranormal creature, I won't ruin the surprise for you, but it's defintely not something you're going to be used to. I loved how long it took to find out what he is too, I kept turning pages thinking, "When am I going to find out what Sam is?!" And when I finally did it was like a, "SAY WHAT?!" moment. As for the romance, that's pretty annoying and I wish there was more sexy time *sigh* but Sam and Heven eventually grew on me, and I found them somewhat cute by the end. There are a lot of action and fighting scenes which were so fun to read, I actually found myself tuning everything out in order to hear about torn body parts and bloody limbs. YES! Finally a paranormal YA with bloody limbs!!! This was by far my favorite part of the whole book.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this one, but I had too many qualms with it to fully imerse myself in the story at one time. It took awhile to get through it, because I found myself either getting bored, annoyed, or frustrated from time to time. About half way through, I felt like things really started to pick up, and I was able to enjoy a lot more of what was happening, and I'm so glad I got to read this one. I'm definitely looking forward to what happens next, it's going to be AWESOME, I can already tell! If you're a fan of paranormal, romance, action, and bloody limbs you're going to love Masquerade!