carolina's Reviews > Masters of Death

࿐ Isn't forever a terrible blessing, and a terribly blissful curse?”

ᝰ.ᐟ 5 stars

There's something so incredibly captivating and alluring about Olivie Blake's writing. It takes my breath away. As someone who has always loved words and beautiful, lyrical prose, I am constantly in awe of Blake's ability to come up with sentences that completely shift my world and make me think, "There it is. There's something I've always thought about but didn't know how to put into words". Her writing is fascinating and thought-provoking and you have to be able to read between the lines to fully grasp the meaning of each sentence. I just love the way Blake is able to explain things and still leave something open to interpretation.

── .✦ “Things are so much sweeter when they have an ending; things are so much more painful when they can be ripped away.”

This book is a brilliant case of "show, don't tell” because you're not given everything on a silver platter, the narrative is not linear and doesn't follow any particular guide. You go back and forth in time, you're given different points of view, and little by little you start to put together all the pieces of the puzzle that you need to understand the story. I was confused most of the time, feeling lost and having no idea what the big picture was, but once the puzzle was complete it all made sense. And something that seemed so complex turned out to be very simple.

The characters are brilliant and intriguing and I became very attached to them in a short amount of time. We have an angel, a reaper, a demon, a vampire, a ghost, a demigod and the godson of Death. Oh, and Death himself, who I think is the funniest character. There's also a pair of really annoying angels who have a nasty habit of finishing each other's sentences and talking in circles. These characters are very complex and each one exists in their own right and not just to support another character's arc. I love them all, but I have to say that Fox and Brandt stole my heart. Their love story was angsty and heartbreakingly beautiful, it made my heart ache in the best and worst way possible.

── .✦ "What life could we have had where I never told you that I loved you?" Brandt begged, and it was wretched, and undignified, and all of it, every breath of it, for Fox. "What kind of life could have ever been enough if I never confessed that I would love you, Fox, for every day that I walked this earth?”

The writing is witty and sarcastic, raw and emotional, and it made me feel so much. I cried at the end, and it was so unexpected, but something about this story was oddly comforting to me, in a way I can't really explain. What starts out as a mystery ends up as a gripping tale about mortality and humanity. Despite the full cast of supernatural and mostly immortal beings, this is a very human story. We often wish we had more time, we want to do so much and live forever, but is immortality really such a wonderful thing to dream about?

There's a lot to be said about the themes explored in this book, brilliantly done in my opinion, and the stunning conversations the characters have, but I'll sum it all up in this sentence: life only has meaning if you can feel it.

── .✦ To love, to forgive, to lose, to live it was always a choice, and thus, the fact that he was a mortal was finally one worth celebrating. Because it would end!

Masters of Death grabbed my attention from the first sentence and kept me enthralled until the end. I'm sure I'll be thinking about this story and these characters for a while.

If you decide to read this book, go into it blind (although reading the synopsis reveals absolutely nothing) and don't give up, it will all make sense. But this is also one of those cases where you either get it or you don't. I sincerely hope you do.

── .✦ To have lived is, as he tells it, reward enough in itself.