A review by disconightwing
Glimmerglass by Jenna Black
2.0
Glimmerglass: the first young adult novel EVER to make me feel more pity for the alcoholic mom than our plucky young herone.
Our main character, Dana, is sixteen years old and has moved several times due to her mother trying to keep her under the radar of her Fae father. She is at a recital (she has a naturally beautiful voice because she's half Fae, and it is the only naturally beautiful thing about her, I swear) when her falling down drunk mother shows up, having driven herself to the recital, and embarrasses the ever living crap out of her. She decides the best course of action to combat this embarrassment is to run away to Avalon and live with her father, who has no idea she even exists. She finds out she has all these spectacular powers that make everyone want her. There is a big bad, and the master plan is LITERALLY “you will do what I want and I will be Queen forever!”
Apparently in this world, the Fae exist and everyone knows about them, and though they live in Faerie and not on our world, but the independent nation of Avalon is the place where Fae and humans can coexist. They're off the coast of Great Britain, and it is apparently a mountain. I'm not sure if it's the King Arthur Avalon or not, but I'd assume that's the case.
There isn't a love triangle in this book! It is a crush fourgy. I'll get into the crush fourgy later.
In case you've missed it thus far, there are enough plot holes in this novel to build an interstate. I could put the plot holes in the order of what pissed me off the most, but I'm not sure I can even accomplish that. It's that bad.
For starters—okay, what kind of teacher sees that her underage student has a mother who clearly can't care for her and will most likely put her in danger by sticking her in a car and driving home drunk, and then says “oh that's too bad?” Why was social services not called right then? More importantly, why wasn't ANYONE called at any point? Why is it that Dana never once tried to get someone to talk to her mother, or any of the teachers, guidance counselors, or principals who probably looked at her transcripts and saw that they moved a million and two times didn't ask what was going on?
Well, the answer to this question is probably “so Dana had one more thing to bitch about.” Seriously, this girl. She was the biggest BRAT. She doesn't like being the adult all the time so she RUNS AWAY. And spends the better part of the novel reminding the reader that she's the adult and how bad it is to never be able to have friends because she has to move so often. She gets kidnapped and bitches about how hard the bed is. She gets kidnapped from the kidnappers and whines because she's put on a sofa. She befriends the kidnappers and is moved to the female's (Kimber's) dorm room. She can't stay with Ethan because he is hawt and a bad boy/player and there is instant attraction. But the couch in Kimber's dorm room is too hard. She moves to a safe house that has a cot. She FINALLY gets to her father's house and what's the first thing she notices? She has to sleep on a futon. Boo freaking hoo.
I just think that if someone's going to talk about their unfortunate circumstances and how hard it is and how broke they are, they're probably not going to bitch all the time when people are trying to help them out. Okay, so the kidnappers, maybe not so much. But if she's grown to like the kidnappers, then is there really a point in talking about how shitty their hospitality is when she could have been sleeping on the floor? I would have put her on the floor. Kimber gives her clothes to wear so she can wash hers and how does she refer to them? “Kimber's cast offs.”
And then the whole romance aspect goes something like this: Ethan, kidnapper number 2 (along with Kimber), is hot, so she feels attracted to him. But he's a player and he uses her, so she runs away. He catches up with her and offers to hide her somewhere else because the political climate is dangerous, and she's the only person in 75 years who can coexist in Faerie and the human world. And there is some election going on for some kind of political position, and whoever controls her will probably win, so she's wanted by three people: her aunt Grace (the first kidnapper), her father (Seamus. What kind of name is Seamus for a fairy anyway?) and Alistair, who is Ethan and Kimber's father. Upon learning that she's a Faeriewalker and that all of these super powerful people are after her and, at this point, having NO reason to be distrustful of the people who have put her up and let her mooch off of them, asks if she can't have a hotel room. When Ethan agrees, albeit reluctantly, the only thing she really thinks about it is how small it is.
Anyway, the romance. So there's Ethan, whom she really does not get to know in any way, and when she runs away from him, there's Finn, who is her bodyguard who's been hired by her father. By the way, her father? Actually not a bad dude. Finally gives her the parental guidance that she claims she wants, and she ends up running away when her mom comes to Avalon to find her. It kind of negates the whole novel, since she ran away because she doesn't want to be the adult to her mother anymore. And then Finn the bodyguard has a son named Keane and he's got the instant attraction thing going on too. Nothing really happens between her and any of these people, except one kiss with Ethan before he's conveniently plucked from the storyline for a while, so after reading the whole novel, I can't even say if I'd rather her eventually end up with Ethan or Keane. I won't say Finn since he's way older than her and she can't really be serious about having a crush on the son and the father. Gross.
So in summary: she runs away, gets kidnapped, gets kidnapped from the kidnappers, befriends the second set of kidnappers, runs away, meets her father, runs away from him, almost gets her mother killed, gets pissed off because she gets grounded for running away. And complains because she's not staying at the Ritz. Or the Hilton, really... the Avalon Hilton. Where her mom stays.
Oh yeah. And “I will be Queen forever!”? Actual quote.
Our main character, Dana, is sixteen years old and has moved several times due to her mother trying to keep her under the radar of her Fae father. She is at a recital (she has a naturally beautiful voice because she's half Fae, and it is the only naturally beautiful thing about her, I swear) when her falling down drunk mother shows up, having driven herself to the recital, and embarrasses the ever living crap out of her. She decides the best course of action to combat this embarrassment is to run away to Avalon and live with her father, who has no idea she even exists. She finds out she has all these spectacular powers that make everyone want her. There is a big bad, and the master plan is LITERALLY “you will do what I want and I will be Queen forever!”
Apparently in this world, the Fae exist and everyone knows about them, and though they live in Faerie and not on our world, but the independent nation of Avalon is the place where Fae and humans can coexist. They're off the coast of Great Britain, and it is apparently a mountain. I'm not sure if it's the King Arthur Avalon or not, but I'd assume that's the case.
There isn't a love triangle in this book! It is a crush fourgy. I'll get into the crush fourgy later.
In case you've missed it thus far, there are enough plot holes in this novel to build an interstate. I could put the plot holes in the order of what pissed me off the most, but I'm not sure I can even accomplish that. It's that bad.
For starters—okay, what kind of teacher sees that her underage student has a mother who clearly can't care for her and will most likely put her in danger by sticking her in a car and driving home drunk, and then says “oh that's too bad?” Why was social services not called right then? More importantly, why wasn't ANYONE called at any point? Why is it that Dana never once tried to get someone to talk to her mother, or any of the teachers, guidance counselors, or principals who probably looked at her transcripts and saw that they moved a million and two times didn't ask what was going on?
Well, the answer to this question is probably “so Dana had one more thing to bitch about.” Seriously, this girl. She was the biggest BRAT. She doesn't like being the adult all the time so she RUNS AWAY. And spends the better part of the novel reminding the reader that she's the adult and how bad it is to never be able to have friends because she has to move so often. She gets kidnapped and bitches about how hard the bed is. She gets kidnapped from the kidnappers and whines because she's put on a sofa. She befriends the kidnappers and is moved to the female's (Kimber's) dorm room. She can't stay with Ethan because he is hawt and a bad boy/player and there is instant attraction. But the couch in Kimber's dorm room is too hard. She moves to a safe house that has a cot. She FINALLY gets to her father's house and what's the first thing she notices? She has to sleep on a futon. Boo freaking hoo.
I just think that if someone's going to talk about their unfortunate circumstances and how hard it is and how broke they are, they're probably not going to bitch all the time when people are trying to help them out. Okay, so the kidnappers, maybe not so much. But if she's grown to like the kidnappers, then is there really a point in talking about how shitty their hospitality is when she could have been sleeping on the floor? I would have put her on the floor. Kimber gives her clothes to wear so she can wash hers and how does she refer to them? “Kimber's cast offs.”
And then the whole romance aspect goes something like this: Ethan, kidnapper number 2 (along with Kimber), is hot, so she feels attracted to him. But he's a player and he uses her, so she runs away. He catches up with her and offers to hide her somewhere else because the political climate is dangerous, and she's the only person in 75 years who can coexist in Faerie and the human world. And there is some election going on for some kind of political position, and whoever controls her will probably win, so she's wanted by three people: her aunt Grace (the first kidnapper), her father (Seamus. What kind of name is Seamus for a fairy anyway?) and Alistair, who is Ethan and Kimber's father. Upon learning that she's a Faeriewalker and that all of these super powerful people are after her and, at this point, having NO reason to be distrustful of the people who have put her up and let her mooch off of them, asks if she can't have a hotel room. When Ethan agrees, albeit reluctantly, the only thing she really thinks about it is how small it is.
Anyway, the romance. So there's Ethan, whom she really does not get to know in any way, and when she runs away from him, there's Finn, who is her bodyguard who's been hired by her father. By the way, her father? Actually not a bad dude. Finally gives her the parental guidance that she claims she wants, and she ends up running away when her mom comes to Avalon to find her. It kind of negates the whole novel, since she ran away because she doesn't want to be the adult to her mother anymore. And then Finn the bodyguard has a son named Keane and he's got the instant attraction thing going on too. Nothing really happens between her and any of these people, except one kiss with Ethan before he's conveniently plucked from the storyline for a while, so after reading the whole novel, I can't even say if I'd rather her eventually end up with Ethan or Keane. I won't say Finn since he's way older than her and she can't really be serious about having a crush on the son and the father. Gross.
So in summary: she runs away, gets kidnapped, gets kidnapped from the kidnappers, befriends the second set of kidnappers, runs away, meets her father, runs away from him, almost gets her mother killed, gets pissed off because she gets grounded for running away. And complains because she's not staying at the Ritz. Or the Hilton, really... the Avalon Hilton. Where her mom stays.
Oh yeah. And “I will be Queen forever!”? Actual quote.