Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Masquerade follows Meadow Liu, who is house-sitting for his artist friend, and encounters a translated novel that turns his life on its head.

This was a strange little book, and certainly difficult to follow for most of the time, but ultimately I think the payoff of this story is absolutely worth it. I loved what it had to say about growing up, about reinvention, and about the distinct experience of not quite having everything figured out. It's a book which operates generally below the surface, and I think I will be thinking on the deeper meanings of a lot of narrative choices for a long while. Though I'm certain this book will not be for readers who aren't willing to engage in a little weirdness, I do think that there's a lot of remarkable story here, and I'm certain I'll be revisiting this read in the future.

Based on the description, I expected to like this. Unfortunately, it felt aimless and I was unable to connect with the characters.

Long ago, I might have had the patience to follow Meadow's self-involved meandering as he gets drunk and stoned and muses about his ex. Every time there was a hint of the intriguing book I expected to read, the narrative jumped to more meandering.

I gave up at 65% because I've lost interest in trying to find out if there will ever be a point to any of the book's many disjunctive threads. It's a non-linear narrative with an extremely passive MC, simply not my kind of book. I wish the author well with finding an audience.

Masquerade might be a better fit for readers who like experimental fiction. My thanks to Tin House for the eARC via NetGalley for consideration. These are my honest opinions.

3.5 stars

The story is about Meadow who is feeling lost in his life. He is staying at a friend's place, not sure what he wants to do career wise, and has just been ghosted. It takes place in NYC and Shanghai. I loved how descriptive the story was, I felt like I was immersed in the different locations. While staying at his friend's apartment, he finds a book called The Masquerade & he begins to question the world around him.

This was beautifully written & parts of it felt very poetic . I enjoyed the vibes of this book but sometimes it did feel like it was trying too hard. It was an overall interesting read, I do wish it had been more cohesive. The story reads almost like a lucid dream. This won't be for everyone, but I did find it interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book had all the potential in the world, but overall, I found the story to be a little confusing and convoluted. I liked the tone of this book, but I didn't like the plot very much. I felt like the author was trying too hard to be edgy. I wanted a more cohesive and well-rounded story. I though the writing was good though, but I don't think this book was memorable or interesting enough for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC!

Mike Fu’s "Masquerade" might be marketed as a surreal exploration of the narratives we believe about ourselves, but don’t let the pitch fool you—this is a book that seems to think repetition is reflection, redundancy is recursion, and recognition is re-evaluation.

It’s an exhausting and fruitless read, particularly because it is so insistent on telling you it has a lot on its mind without ever offering any evidence to support such a claim.

The protagonist, Meadow, has settled into that post-grad school malaise where his life is uneventful. He’s just gotten out of yet another relationship, and his best friend prophetically says, “You fall easily into this kind of story. Invent a new one and start over.” Then, she promptly vanishes, and Meadow finds a book written by someone who shares his name. Sounds exciting, no?

There’s definitely potential here for parsing out the difference between self-narration and self-mythology, and that seems to be what Fu is reaching for. Unfortunately, it remains beyond his reach at every opportunity, starting with his characters.

The voices throughout the book are interchangeable, often doing little more than explicitly commenting on their inability to write their own narrative. Before you think that’s a very meta and heady approach, please know that it’s not an approach—it’s just something that happens over and over with no development. Fu treats the book’s premise—write a new story—as its conclusion, and it reads like a thought exercise without a thought behind it.

Similarly, the Matryoshka doll approach to storytelling Fu employs here feels like it could add a lot to a deconstruction of narrative. We revisit the same scenes repeatedly, and it seems like the intention is to craft a kaleidoscopic, multilayered story where we dive deeper into the impact of specific moments. What we actually get is closer to an extended montage, endlessly recapping scenes without development and undermining any of the surrealism suggested by the marketing copy with the most wooden literalism imaginable. Most of these scenes are wine-soaked dinner parties, but we don’t even get to enjoy the listless vibe of a hangout. The book just feels like a novella-shaped premise stretched beyond recognition into a novel.

Ultimately, I don’t think these things would matter much if the prose were good. I’ve read many uneventful books that still feel rewarding because each sentence stands as a work of art. Sadly, "Masquerade" lets readers down here too, offering a frustrating pastiche of clichés—ChatGPT-core, if you will.

It’s a harsh critique, but there were so many moments that felt like an algorithm’s notion of “literary” writing—radical anonymity when it’s clear the author is capable of more. Consider, for example, the following sentences:

“But none of this has come to pass. Meadow has no idea yet about the sordid tale that’s on the cusp of unfolding.”

So much of the prose is uncomfortably and artificially elevated like this, and it’s unfortunate because the authorial voice periodically relaxes into something far more distinctive. I fully believe that Mike Fu could write a book that accomplishes more if it were less preoccupied with identifying its own ambition.

In the end, "Masquerade" is a frustrating disappointment, a surprise from Tin House. While I sympathize with its command to “write a new story,” I encourage interested parties to skip this book and instead read a new story.

I loved it!! It was such a great vibe, the mc was very likeable, the writing was great and easy to follow. I loved the premise and felt like it was well done. Would recommend!!

#NetGalley

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for granting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest rating.

I'll be honest: Masquerade was a disappointment. The publisher's description calls it "a queer coming-of-age mystery about a lovelorn bartender and his complex friendship with a volatile artist.... Over the course of a single summer, Meadow [the main character] must contend with a possibly haunted apartment, a mirror that plays tricks, a stranger speaking in riddles at the bar where he works, as well as a startling revelation about a former lover. And when Selma [the volatile artist] vanishes from her artist residency, Meadow is forced to question everything he knows as the boundaries between real and imagined begin to blur."

There's lots that sounds promising there: interesting people, multiple and varied locations, the possibility of something unearthly. Others' reviews of the work noted that it was very slow to start, but there were also a lot of positive comments about how the novel winds up. I agree with the first of those two, but not with the second. I really pushed myself to finish this one because I had faith that if enough other readers had found it ultimately worthwhile, then I would too—but I didn't.

It seems that the reader is intended to find the novel transformational, changing the life path of the central character. But the transformation didn't transform. As far as I could tell, the central character remained exactly who he was from the novel's start: an intelligent, hopeful individual too willing to let the world outside him determine his destiny, rather than making a determination of his own.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title; the opinions are my own.

The world of Masquerade is rather Lewis Caroll-esque in its meandering way through a queer and migrant coming of age that is at once relatable to me in some quiet unhinged ways, but also perhaps a bit too indulgent. While I could relate to Meadow's caught-between-worlds state, I couldn't relate to his fundamental passivity. That said, his social landscape was very vivid and known to me, yet the narrative took way too long to get to the central plot churning, before which I was honestly bored by Meadow. The book in a book concert was pretty interesting, and something I would have liked to have more of a hold on the narrative than it did, but as it stands, there is a determined detached tone to the whole thing, which made this story just short of truly moving or remarkable to me.

Dear Author,

Your story was beautifully written. I love reading queer centered stories! Unfortunately, I did not connect with it completely.

Yours truly,
J. D. McCoughtry

Thank you NetGalley and Tin House Publishing for the chance to read this e-arc.

More poetic than plot, The Masquerade is an odd, slow burn of a story with beautiful prose. Primarily about the odd events of a summer in Meadow's life, we learn about the folks he surrounds himself with and the declining mental state of himself.
I think it's a fault of my own that I'm not able to fully appreciate this story, as symbolism has never been a strong suit of mine. This story relies heavily on a critical examination and your own interpretation of events. There's minimal plot which added to the overall confusion I had on what it was about. But the language and prose is gorgeous, so it's worth reading for that at least.
Overall I'd recommend it for anyone looking for an odd story or who enjoys more flowery prose. I probably won't read it again but I still liked the experience of reading it.

thank you to netgalley for the eARC.

this type of book is often a toss up for me, i either don’t like it much or will think about it for days after the fact and i unfortunately wasn’t a big fan of this one.

i was interested at the beginning and quickly lost interest. i think i should’ve dnf’d it then rather than reading it through since i honestly can’t remember much of what happened, it all feels very jumbled in my mind.

there was a chapter where several characters were introduced at once, something i really don’t like, and continued appearing so i was trying to figure out who was who, their relevance to certain characters and their relationships with certain characters. another thing i didn’t like about this book is the chapters were often really long and i found myself struggling to get through it. this book just had a lot of things i don’t enjoy.

one thing i did really like though was the culture in the book. the descriptions were well done and i was fascinated with them. i enjoyed them when i came across them.

unfortunately, i wasn’t a fan of this book, but i might give this author another try as their writing style was something i liked.

If you like magical, realistic mysteries, this novel is for you. It takes place in Shanghai and NYC. The protagonist is lost in life, love, and his career path. Throughout this adventure, he goes through a quarter-life existential crisis and searches for answers.

Meadow Liu is neither here nor there. He is house-sitting for his artist friend Selma Shimizu. He is between relationships. He is between countries. While he is house-sitting, he finds a book called The Masquerade, a translated novel about a masked ball in 1930s Shanghai by an author with his name. Thus begins a series of questionable Black Mirror-type events.

This queer coming-of-age novel forces the protagonist to take action. Move out of stasis. Stop being a ghost or a mere reflection of a person and be decisive. Be deserving of a life that he chooses instead of passively experiencing.

I recommend this novel. It will keep you guessing. The search for identity and finding one’s chosen family and path is relatable to all. And the mysterious elements are just icing on the cake.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tin House Books for the enjoyable ARC!