A review by bookishwendy
Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
3.0
*note* I received this book through the Goodreads First Reads program.
Anyone else noticing how dark YA books have become recently? Not that I mind, I've been attracted to darker stories from the first (I'm thinking the illustrated version of Alfred Noyes's beautiful yet bloody [b:The Highwayman|116381|The Highwayman|Alfred Noyes|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171723461s/116381.jpg|112077] that I stumbled across in my elementary school library) and, more recently, to [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1337857402s/2767052.jpg|2792775] in which school-age kids battle to the death on live TV. But while Glow seems to be riding The Hunger Games dystopian coattails, the story itself has little in common with the pop YA lit trendsetter.
In Glow, a future Earth has become uninhabitable, and so self-sufficient Noah's ark-like spaceships are sent to colonize "New Earth". The journey will be long, so long that the original space travelers will not live to see New Earth, and their children, born en-route, will be elderly on arrival. Teenage protagonists Kieran and Waverly have known no other life than aboard the ship Empyrean. The closest ship New Horizon left Earth a year ahead of the Empyrean...so its sudden appearance alongside Empyrean is a shock...and a mystery. I don't want to give away any more than that and spoil the plot surprises of the first few chapters, so suffice it to say that Glow reminds me much more of the post nuclear-holocaust YA book [b:The City of Ember|307791|The City of Ember (Book of Ember, #1)|Jeanne DuPrau|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298499778s/307791.jpg|2285229] by Jeanne Duprau (than say the Hunger Games), in which children must come to terms with the dire mistakes of their fore-bearers.
For me, the broader story and themes of Glow worked best in this story--the loss of home and family, the loneliness of space, the conflict between the uplifting and corrupting sides of organized religion. I liked how pure good and evil are difficult to detect in this novel--for example, in the pastor who does some despicable things in the name of religion, all of which stemmed from honorable ideals and intentions. And I'll even admit that I teared up around page 138 in the middle of--oh, I won't give it away, you can read it for yourself!
While the larger concepts drew me in, I still struggled with the rather bland characterization of the two protagonists, and the rushed pace of the novel's final third. Kieran and Waverly are an every-boy and every-girl, and while perhaps this may help average kids identify with them, in my mind they acted too normal--too Earth-normal--to really be believable as kids who had never stepped foot on a planet. Surely the Empyrean must have had a very specific culture, language, quirks, which develop in closed societies in unusual environments...but I didn't get a sense of that here. However, I'm intrigued enough that I may seek out book two of the series.
Anyone else noticing how dark YA books have become recently? Not that I mind, I've been attracted to darker stories from the first (I'm thinking the illustrated version of Alfred Noyes's beautiful yet bloody [b:The Highwayman|116381|The Highwayman|Alfred Noyes|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171723461s/116381.jpg|112077] that I stumbled across in my elementary school library) and, more recently, to [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1337857402s/2767052.jpg|2792775] in which school-age kids battle to the death on live TV. But while Glow seems to be riding The Hunger Games dystopian coattails, the story itself has little in common with the pop YA lit trendsetter.
In Glow, a future Earth has become uninhabitable, and so self-sufficient Noah's ark-like spaceships are sent to colonize "New Earth". The journey will be long, so long that the original space travelers will not live to see New Earth, and their children, born en-route, will be elderly on arrival. Teenage protagonists Kieran and Waverly have known no other life than aboard the ship Empyrean. The closest ship New Horizon left Earth a year ahead of the Empyrean...so its sudden appearance alongside Empyrean is a shock...and a mystery. I don't want to give away any more than that and spoil the plot surprises of the first few chapters, so suffice it to say that Glow reminds me much more of the post nuclear-holocaust YA book [b:The City of Ember|307791|The City of Ember (Book of Ember, #1)|Jeanne DuPrau|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298499778s/307791.jpg|2285229] by Jeanne Duprau (than say the Hunger Games), in which children must come to terms with the dire mistakes of their fore-bearers.
For me, the broader story and themes of Glow worked best in this story--the loss of home and family, the loneliness of space, the conflict between the uplifting and corrupting sides of organized religion. I liked how pure good and evil are difficult to detect in this novel--for example, in the pastor who does some despicable things in the name of religion, all of which stemmed from honorable ideals and intentions. And I'll even admit that I teared up around page 138 in the middle of--oh, I won't give it away, you can read it for yourself!
While the larger concepts drew me in, I still struggled with the rather bland characterization of the two protagonists, and the rushed pace of the novel's final third. Kieran and Waverly are an every-boy and every-girl, and while perhaps this may help average kids identify with them, in my mind they acted too normal--too Earth-normal--to really be believable as kids who had never stepped foot on a planet. Surely the Empyrean must have had a very specific culture, language, quirks, which develop in closed societies in unusual environments...but I didn't get a sense of that here. However, I'm intrigued enough that I may seek out book two of the series.