by O. O. Sangoyomi
368pp (Trade Paperback)
My Rating: 7/10
LibraryThing Rating: 3.84/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.9/5
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Masquerade, O. O. Sangoyomi’s debut novel, is a rare instance of a book I read without really knowing what to expect. I believe it first came to my attention when it became a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards for Debut Novel, and after that, I saw some readers mention they enjoyed it. I knew it was loosely based on the myth of Persephone, that it promised politicking in a reimagined fifteenth-century West Africa, and that it likely crossed genres, having been recognized by awards for both fantasy and historical fiction (though it was more often categorized as the latter). Yet I didn’t know which elements were speculative, what the characters and their arcs were supposed to be like, or if the relationship inspired by Persephone and Hades was at all romantic or had a happy ending.
As it turns out, I had fun discovering these aspects without having too much prior knowledge of Masquerade, so I’m going to preface this review with something that may sound a bit odd: maybe you don’t want to read this review if you’re interested in reading this novel.
Maybe you just want to know the short version, which is that:
- I rather enjoyed the story and eagerly turned the pages
- I loved the themes and ending
- I found the protagonist and her characterization frustrating
This means my feelings on this one are a bit complicated, but I ultimately thought Sangoyomi did some interesting things in her standalone debut novel, making it one that lingered a bit more than most books after I finished it—though part of the reason for that is just how vexing it is to read a book that’s so close to being great but has some aspects holding it back.
If you want the detailed version, keep reading.
Masquerade is a novel set in Medieval West Africa that is largely historical but also a bit speculative since Sangoyomi adjusted her setting to fit the themes she was exploring related to women living in a patriarchal society (as mentioned in this interview at Grimdark Magazine). Historically, Yorùbá blacksmiths were revered for their mystical-seeming ability to transform metal, but the author made this the profession of women in her story to examine how female artisans would have been viewed with suspicion and accused of witchcraft for the same abilities. It’s not a straightforward retelling of the story of Persephone and Hades and does not include the underworld or literal Greek deities, but it is sometimes classified as magical realism due to some otherworldly aspects involving some of the Yorùbá pantheon. (These parts are brief but consequential.)
This novel is similar in feel to a lot of modern fantasy with its first-person narration from the perspective of a young woman who must contend with being taken from the life she’s always known and thrust into an unfamiliar royal court with cutthroat, potentially deadly politics. Òdódó, a blacksmith and the daughter of one, is drugged and abducted at the command of the king of Yorùbáland, who decided he must have her as his wife after he came across her singing and working at her forge in Timbuktu. She is thrilled by the prospect of exchanging her days of toil for luxury, but she soon discovers that many of the king’s allies are against his marrying a “witch”—and she has much to learn and needs to change if she wants to continue to hold on to her new position.
In many ways, Masquerade is a novel about women’s lives in a patriarchal society: the struggles they face, the ways in which they feel like they need to turn on each other for their own survival, and their inability to be seen as individuals. Òdódó’s journey is largely about discovering how she can use misconceptions and being underestimated to her advantage, and I loved her story in general: the twists and turns and seeing just how far she was willing to go to hold on to the life she’d decided she wanted. However, it was difficult to believe in her as a character when she vacillated between overlooking the most obvious clues and being the smartest person in the room.
The most frustrating part of that is that I don’t think it would have taken much to make her someone I could believe in as a character. It didn’t seem like it was trying to be a book with especially complicated politics or characterization, so I wasn’t expecting labyrinthine plotting or a deep dive into personality from it. It also examined some ideas related to the duality of humanity, such as how someone can both care for someone and treat them horribly, as shown through Òdódó’s relationships with both her mother and her eventual husband, and it also showed Òdódó as someone who had feelings for the king and good moments with him while also being aggrieved by the way he treated her at times—so I didn’t expect the protagonist to be one dimensional in her skills and outlook, either.
Because of that, I was willing to believe there were reasons for a lot of the parts that struck me as odd at times, like how quickly Òdódó got over the fact that she was abducted and embraced her new role. It might have helped to get more of a sense of what her life was like before she was kidnapped to better illustrate why she would have been so glad to leave her old life behind, especially since a big reason I thought she’d be eager to leave it behind didn’t end up applying, but I could certainly understand how living as a queen would be preferable to toiling at a forge.
It also seemed a bit discordant to me at first that someone like Òdódó—a common woman who would have been treated as such—didn’t seem to fully grasp how a lot of people might hate their king and conqueror, but she’s also only nineteen years old and was probably rather sheltered in her community of female blacksmiths. Although we don’t see a lot of her life before her abduction, the first chapter showed that her over-protective mother didn’t like for her to wander the city alone and punished her for talking to strange men. When there were things I would have expected her to be more disturbed by or give more consideration to, I was also aware that her youth and upbringing could account for some obliviousness and naivete.
Between those reasons and the fact that she wasn’t the type of character whose narrative always clearly laid out all her thoughts and feelings, I think I would have found her journey perfectly believable if just a couple of things had been tweaked. For one, it would have helped if it had leaned into her being someone who took everyone at their word, at least earlier in her story. It came close to doing that, but there was one person she should have known very well whose words she did not take as truth and was shocked to discover didn’t react to everything the way she expected. This does work with her sometimes overlooking things that don’t fit with what she wants to believe, though, so that’s not the bigger problem for me.
The larger issue is that there is one scene that made her look smarter than everyone else in the room that followed closely behind her not seeing what should have been obvious (though that could fall into that category of her trying to see what she wanted to believe). I think the intent was for her to have a different perspective given some recent experience, how men in power tend to handle their problems, and what she was beginning to learn about how to best handle court in her position (and to illustrate that even when she had ideas and input, her soon-to-be husband got all the credit). Yet it just didn’t make sense that she was giving sound advice no one else had apparently considered to a room full of people who had a lifetime of experience and the success in their field to show for it, all while she’d only had introductory instruction in their area of expertise. It stood out since it didn’t seem like she was even supposed to be some sort of mastermind, just someone capable of learning how to use the strengths she had to her advantage. Simply removing or toning down this one part would have done a lot to make her a character I could believe in as someone young and inexperienced who just needed some time to acclimate to her new situation.
Aside from my frustration about some character inconsistency, I really enjoyed this story for its readability, setting, and overall arc with a perfect ending, and I loved what the author did with the alternative history of the blacksmith guild and its women. (And for those wondering, no, it does not have a romance by definition.) Yet there was enough done well in this debut that I am interested in checking out Sangoyomi’s second novel, a young adult dark academia book titled Dreamweaving, which is the opening installment in a contemporary fantasy series scheduled for release later this year.
My Rating: 7/10
Where I got my reading copy: It was a Christmas gift.
