Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Garish Glow

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

* Received ARC from TOR via a post on Twitter where the first 100 people to respond won a copy.


2 gnomes and a gnome hat out of 5 gnomes

This book kind of felt awkward while reading, I don’t think I’ve ever vacillated between loving and hating a book so much while reading. The book has it's good parts but there is some stuff that it kind of hard to get through. I found myself wondering throughout why the book is titled Glow. It's a good title but doesn't seem to connect anywhere in the story so far.

Books set in space always interest me just because there is so much that can be done with this environment. My love for all things Star Trek probably also influences my love for space books. It's easy to have lots of tension when people are stuck in one environment and have nowhere else to go. 

In this book the main tension though is pretty predictable when in the first chapter you find out that they aren't the only ship out there. No one knows what to expect and then of course things go awry. It was surprising how fast things went wrong and how ill prepared the adults of the ship were when there's big troubles.

I usually like books that have two points of view.  This book though, not so much.  At first I really liked Kieran but then I got to the chapters from his point of view.  They just bring the action in the story to a screeching halt. Waverly actually grew on me as a character while Kieran just made me madder the more it switched to his chapters. I would love this story a lot more if it was all told from Waverly's point of view.

Waverly by far is the stronger character of the two. She becomes the defacto leader of the girls because she's the oldest. They all look to her to see what they should do when they are separated from everybody but each other. She is actually a believable leader for a rebellion I just wish more time had been spent showing all the planning that Waverly and the girls have to do to escape.

The two love interests couldn't be more different. If we're picking teams though, I'm definitely Team Waverly over any of the guys. Kieran seems to be to pliable and like he might go power hungry eventually. Seth, the other love interest, seems like a good guy at first but as the story progresses isn't exactly a stable guy. 

There's a lot of craziness in this story and that's what kept me reading. Plenty of uncomfortable moments abound and will make you question if there are any good guys. Another bit that is kind of all over the place is the view on religion. Even in the future I don't think that ships would be separated purely by religion (that's just asking for trouble). Even though I'm not the most religious person I'm not sure that religion should be shown to be the answer to or the most evil thing all in one novel. I guess I just like a bit more hope in stories.

The ending does make the set up for the next book look interesting but I don't know if I'll actively seek out the next book or just wait until it's on sale somewhere. Overall an okay read but not as exciting as I originally thought it would be.

Most awkward quote ever:
"He loved her long arms, her strong bones beneath olive skin, and the silken hairs hairs that wandered up her fore-arms."

My thought upon reading the above quote: Who the heck talks like that.  Not exactly what you would want a guy thinking about, right??

2 comments:

  1. That quote has me picturing her as a humanoid alien with apish arms and skin covered with pale green down. Awkward indeed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Anonymous, Thanks for the laugh Anonymous :) That's my point exactly, it's just a supremely awkward quote. That quote is supposedly how one of the love interests sees the main character Waverly.

    ReplyDelete

Hi, let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy the blog, I love reading each and every comment. :)