Review: Glimmerglass

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Disclaimer: I won this book in the Goodreads giveaway.

Glimmerglass is a novel about Dana, a 16-year-old girl who runs away from her alcoholic mother to Avalon, where Faerie and human worlds meet, to live with her Fae father. What she doesn't realize when she makes this decision is that she will be pulled in all sorts of directions, and her life put in danger several times, just by alerting her father to her existence.

This is definitely a novel for young adults. The language and situations are geared toward teens. In that respect, it was an effective book. My problem is that it is too made for teens. I love YA literature, especially YA fantasy, because a lot of it is able to cross borders into adult enjoyment. Diana Wynne Jones is a master of this, as well as Tamora Pierce. Jenna Black just doesn't quite cut it.

The author does a good job with the teen "dialect," for lack of a better word. "Like," "duh," and other words associated with teens were pretty prevalent in the text, which put me off a bit. I think the book's story could have gotten across just as easily without it, and in fact, I would rather have read it in the third person than first person. Dana I found to be a confused, indecisive, and needy girl, which is understandable considering her past, but did not make for a heroine I particularly admired. Maybe that wasn't the point of the book. But if I can't feel a connection with the heroine, I can't enjoy the read.

There comes a point in a novel where some detail needs to become clear. Whether it be the bad guy finally coming into the open, or the heroine learning who she needs to trust and what she needs to do, there needs to be a decisive moment in the book that serves as the climax. There was no climax in this book; rather, there was constant conflicting information. Who do we, as readers, trust? Is Ethan a good guy or a bad guy? Is Dana just a pain in the ass who feels betrayed at the drop of a hat? Is EVERY Fae guy going to be drooled over? And who the heck is looking out for her? The scene at the end where Aunt Grace takes decisive action is an "almost" for this need, but doesn't quite fulfill.

When the end of the novel came, I was frustrated because there was no closure. Dana is put essentially into a prison of her father's making, and her mother is a ruined wreck of a woman, albeit sober (but bitter). Finn is still stoic and not completely friendly, Ethan is nowhere to be seen, and Kimber has become a sniveling self-conscious baby instead of the strong woman she shows off at the beginning. I understand there is a sequel, so there can't be complete closure, but every book needs to have some sort of conclusion. This was like putting a "To Be Continued..." message at the end of a TV show. The best authors can conclude a book and then start the sequel as a continuation.

Overall, there were a lot of things I would change, but then it wouldn't be Jenna Black's book, it would be mine. I guess you can't always get what you want in a read, but while it was a somewhat interesting read, I didn't end up liking it enough to pick up the next book.



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