Book Review: Venom

NOTE: I read this as an ARC but this got published this week so you can read it if you want.

Happy Halloween! Well, happy November 1st. I'm close enough.

In honor of this spooky holiday, I'm going to review a spooky book.

DEAN IS FRIGHTENED

The book is called Venom. It's by Fiona Paul. Venom is about a rich Italian girl named Cassandra in the Renaissance who finds a murdered body in a graveyard. So she tries to solve the mystery with a poor artist named Falco while dealing with her friend Mada's wedding and her own arranged engagement to rich guy who's studying in Paris.

I got this book at Teen Advisory Board. The cover was fantastic because all I could think was "Damn. I want a mask like that." (Want to know what I'm talking about? Google it. Or, better yet, buy it.) So I decided to check out the summary.

Not going to lie, I was a little hesitant to read it after reading the summary. Only because it had mentioned a "wrong" attraction to a poor guy when Cass is betrothed to a rich guy. Everything else was awesome.

An alert had went off in my head when I read about the romance-part. "This was going to be a love triangle thing, wasn't it?" I swore off those after reading The Hunger Games. Along with dystopian or paranormal romance.

But I decided to read it anyway. Because I had the highest hopes in my heart that they would focus more on the mystery of the killer than just the love triangle. And there aren't that many teen mysteries out there. And the book had me intrigued. "Who had killed the hooker?" was running through my mind.

I had a really tough time putting this book down. But I had to, because I read Venom during that sucky time at the beginning of the year where teachers first test your knowledge and assign you a ton of projects and tests. That was my hell for two weeks.

Back to the book!

I thought this book was amazing. For three reasons.

*SLIGHT SPOILERS PROBABABALLY*

The first was the OODLES of sexual tension.

I instantly shipped Falco and Cass. (Calco? Falss? I'm not good at this.) I mean they met over the bloody corpse of a prostitute and Falco managed to make Cass blush. That takes skill. Paul didn't even really focus on the fiancee, just Cass and Falco so my worries weren't necessary. And how can the underdog-supporter-in-all-of-us not love the fact she's "engaged" and manages to find true love (I hope, it's only the first book of a trilogy) in a wrong place to a "wrong" guy. MY SHIPPER FEELZ.

I also loved the fact Paul integrated some actual Italian words into the literature. Who needs school? Literature is my guide. I take Spanish at school so I didn't have to use Google Translate to figure out all the words (I needed it like twice). But when I finally figured out what a word meant it helped the story.

Finally, there was the fact it was historical. Not paranormal. Paranormal romances irk the HELL out of me. There have to be more love stories than a human with a werewolf/fallen angel/vampire/freaky demon hunter/toaster/shape shifter. It didn't need actual magic to make this book magical. And I found that amazing. You go Fiona Paul!

So yeah. This book was amazing and you can check it out. I give it 1200 awesome masks out of 1200.

If you have read it, are reading it or want to read it, leave a comment down below. Comments make me feel fuzzy inside.

Always reading, (trying to figure out farewells. Tell me your favorite!)

Owyn