Masquerade by Melissa De La Cruz

Schuylar Van Alen wants an explanation for the mysterious deaths of young vampires. With her best friend, Oliver, Schuylar travels to Italy in the hope of finding the one man who can help -her grandfather. Meanwhile, back in New York, preparations are feverishly under way for the Four Hundred Ball, an exclusive gala hosted by the city's wealthy, powerful, and inhuman -a true Blue Blood affair.

But it's at the after-party, a masquerade ball thrown by the cunning Mimi Force, that the real danger lurks. Hidden behind the masks is a revelation that will forever change the course of a young vampire's destiny.

Hot damn! These books have more twists and turns than my back did before scoliosis surgery!

I finished this after rushing through it like a maniac. Screw savoring the moment -I wanted to find out what happens next! I can't remember the last time I was so enthused about a series. The mere fact that I'm writing this now instead of putting it off until later should tell you something. (I'm very lazy, you see)

For those of you who have read these books, you get it, you understand. For those of you who haven't, I strongly recommend that you get on it before your awesomeness card gets revoked. Find some way to get these books. Beg, panhandle, do inter-library loan.

Again, it's hard to discuss Masquerade in anything remotely resembling a rational manner without giving up spoilers. I'm going to try to do this in as non spoilery a way as possible because pissing people off isn't cool *coughmostofthetimecough*. BUT, if you're like me and love spoilers, just email me and be like "yo, Taren, tell me everything" and I will fill you in.

I still have the same complaint from last time, that the whole modeling thing just seems really out of place. It suits Bliss just fine, but it doesn't really mesh with what we know of Schylar's character so far. Sure, I guess it suits Jack's character, too, but him just randomly showing up to model seemed weirder than Schuylar doing it.

I still have oodles of questions, which is understandable I guess. The Jack and Mimi, "incest except not" thing confuses me. If they're following their past lives and their past lives always end up together, why become reborn in this life as brother and sister? They're pretty well known -if they get married at some point (I'm still not sure if that goes along with the whole bonding thing) people are going to remember that they're related. Don't get me wrong -it's a really interesting concept and it believably sets up a rivalry and a love triangle, but I (in my own selfish way) just want to know the logistics of the situation.

It's good that there are questions, though, and it's not predictable. I keep thinking I know what's going to happen, a character says what I've been thinking, I pat myself on the back (it's easy since I'm double jointed), and then nope, turns out we were wrong. It's like an episode of House, only non-medical and without Hugh Laurie's fine looking self. Who didn't forsee Bella and Edward getting together? Or Harry defeating Voldemort? The Blue Bloods series, though? I have no idea what the end game is going to be.

Don't even get me started on the vampire concept of conduits. I don't know about anyone else, but I like the idea of having someone born specifically to be my best friend and help me out with my problems. And if he just so happens to be hot? And my grandfather suggests that I perform a pseudo sexual ritual on said friend so that I don't slip into a coma like my mother? Well, everyone has to make sacrifices at some point.

http://thechickmanifesto.blogspot.com/2008/11/masquerade-blue-bloods-novel-2-by.html