Nessa Luna
Written on Jun 21, 2016
A while back I participated in a book tour for the book Inked, and a while back I decided to visit the website that hosted the tour again. There, I saw a couple of new announcements, and one of the books that jumped out at me was The Masterpiecers partly because of that beautiful cover. The synopsis sounded interesting as well, so I requested a copy.
This book tells the story of Ivy and Aster Redd, who are twins, but that's where the comparison stops. Ivy is an artist, and a contestand on the show The Masterpiecers where she'll compete for a spot at one of America's most priced art schools. Meanwhile, Aster is in jail awaiting trial for the murder of a wanted mobster (which she claims was self defence). We follow both girls, in a dual POV, as they try to adjust to their new lives and fall further into the mess that was created on that fateful August night.
I have to admit, I found this book a bit predictable. Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, but I had hoped it would be more thrilling and more like Dangerous Girls (aka the book where I literally gasped at the end). But I had predicted some of the big reveals pretty early on in the book already, and that made me a bit sad. But like I said, it was still a nice book, and I did really enjoy reading from both of the girls' POV.
Aster's POV was more interesting to me, to be honest, even though Ivy had the 'supercool' art competition, but honestly I found it a bit dull. The most exciting part of the competition was when they had to steal actual art from a museum or vault but that was about it. The whole drama around the competition was exciting as well, but the actual art show as just not as great as I had hoped it would be. So Aster's chapters in between were a great getaway from that.
I do feel like sometimes I missed a couple of things - like one of the contestants was apparently sent home and I just completely missed that part. It was mentioned in a sentence and quickly brushed over by something else and I didn't realise it until a couple of pages later.
The book was really interesting, and I enjoyed the writing. I literally flew through it, partly because it was so easily written and partly because I just wanted to know the truth. Because you don't really know who to believe. Aster was diagnosed with schizoprenia so she's not really trustworthy What I didn't like so much though was that the book ended with a cliffhanger (not a 'OH MY GOD HOW DARE SHE END IT LIKE THAT' hanger, but still it was rather annoying) and this makes me feel obliged to pick up the second book. I don't know how I feel about that, to be honest.. Oh well...
My opinion in one gif: