Stravaganza: City of Masks by Mary Hoffman

(OOOOO)

Present day, London. Lucien Mulholland spends his days in a hospital bed receiving vicious treatment for the cancer that has taken over his brain. It makes him so sick that sometimes he wonders what makes him feel worse: the cancer or the chemo. His parents do everything they can to try and make him feel better, and one day his father brings him a little notebook he found in a house he was cleaning out. It doesn't seem like much, but when Lucien falls asleep with the notebook in his hand, he realizes it's a much bigger thing than he could have ever imagined.

Suddenly, Lucien finds himself transported to a different time, different place. He quickly realizes that his hair, long gone because of the cancer treatments, is back, and he feels stronger and healthier than ever, although a little confused. He meets a girl who is not where she's supposed to be, and he is somehow trapped into being in the service of the Duchess of the Island Bellezza, which he comes to realize is very much like the city he knows as Venice. When he wakes up in his hospital bed, he decides all this must be a dream. But when the dreams keep coming back, they become almost more real than his home in London. He meets a man who tells him he isn't dreaming but stravagating. Traveling from one world to another, and all this because of the little notebook his father had given him. Can Lucien handle living in both worlds, thriving in one, barely surviving in another? Find out in this book filled with adventure, magic, and even a little romance.

I picked this book up at the library, not sure what to expect. I was intrigued by the cover, and the thought of travel to a different time and place has always been interesting to me. Though it was a little hard to get into, I loved this book. It was not predictable at all, a very big advantage when it comes to the books I read, and it was so good I couldn't put it down. I read it in a very short amount of time, not because of it's level of difficulty, but because of the storyline that kept me reading. I thought the parallels between Talia of the book and Italy of our world were very interesting, but the two places weren't too similar to be boring. It was a great read and I definitely reccomend it! I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

Mary Hoffman has loved Italy since her first trip there at 14, and she has transferred that love into City of Masks. She has written four sequels to City of Masks, and the sixth one is due to come out in 2012. For more information about Mary Hoffman and her other books, visit maryhoffman.co.uk.