A review by littlemisscass
The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead

2.0

I like the ideas behind Mead's novels. I even have quite enjoyed two of her series. But this book was, for the most part, unengaging. Although I tended to like the characters (Adelaide was incredibly annoying and precious most of the time, which wasn't helped by the first person perspective), there was little apparent plot driving the book, and it seemed like as many genres as possible had been mashed together to create something new. Genre-mash really works for the Age of X series, but less so here, where it flitted from one to another (from 'historical' to colonial to gold rush to...), rather than settling on one. The setting and general 'colonial' plot was too close to history to be interesting but too far from history to make sense. Honestly, the only thing that kept me reading was the decent writing (if I ignore the irritating and cringeworthy dialogue - internal and external - in the finishing school/female friends scenes) and the slow burning romance. Even that got boring by the end.