Review: The Masterpiecers

The Masterpiecers by Olivia Wildenstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Masterpiecers is one of those books where I was unsure as to what rating I was to give it. A part of me screamed out four stars, yet another part of me screamed out three stars. Overall, it’s a three-point-five stars rating from me. I opted to round up because, in the end, I was truly addicted to this one.

The Masterpiecers was a divergence from my usual read in quite a few ways. I enjoy suspense and I enjoy young adult, but I rarely mix the two together. I often find such a mix never quite lives up to my expectations. When I’m reading suspense, I enjoy the gritty reads. When I’m reading young adult, I enjoy the simple escapism. I’m well aware that a combination of the two genres will not result in a combination of the two elements – simply by being young adult, such reads will never quite be the level of gritty I enjoy – yet the synopsis of this one grabbed me enough to leave me willing to take the leap. I was interested to see what this one would bring us.

The Masterpiecers is told from two alternating viewpoints, taking on one of the big trends in thriller at the moment. Sometimes I find myself groaning when this happens – I sometimes feel as though authors are doing it to ‘fix it’, much like we’re all back at school in the awkward teen phase – but with this one it really worked. Our two characters are in very different places, two very different stories are taking place. Through the alternating perspectives we get to see how each individual story unfolds, whilst being show how well intertwined the storylines are.

The storyline of Ivy gives us an insight into the world of reality television. The storyline of Aster gives us an insight into life behind bars. Both stories were interesting in many ways, I was curious about what was happening in both stories. Both storylines required me to step away from reality – Aster’s in particular had me thinking ‘that would never happen in real life’ and certain elements of her storyline (mainly the mental health element) had me questioning the way people were behaving – but when I managed to distance myself from real possibilities and the fiction of the story I did enjoy all that took place. Some things required more of a suspension of belief than other elements, but when my head was wrapped around all of these aspects, the story does intrigue.

The two storylines were brought together really well. I will admit to working out quite a lot of the details, but it was interesting to see the way in which the details slowly came to light for both of the sisters. It made for a really gripping read to see how they would react to the new information and to watch them try to puzzle things out, as they were pulled deeper into the web.

Overall, it was a really interesting story. It has certainly left me interested in where the story will go from here.

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