1/5 Stars
Glimmerglass is the kind of YA book that makes me wonder why I ever read YA books. I mean, I have my guns and usually I stick to them. But Glimmerglass… I was the victim of cover-lust in the worst way. I was so disillusioned by the experience that I just tried to forget about the book rather than writing the review I said I would write. I hid it on the back of my shamereads bookshelf and pretended that it hadn’t happened. I usually don’t like to add my two cents when a book just isn’t for me. I prefer to use Goodreads to tout the books I love. And when I don’t like a book, there are usually tons of people out there who do like it (as there are for Glimmerglass) and a healthy smattering of those who didn’t and aren’t afraid to let loose a real rant.
So, let me start by saying that there are things I liked about this book. I’ve already mentioned the cover. I like the title, too, and the idea that it represents (although we really only get an inkling of what Black intends to do with the Glimmerglass concept). But that’s about it. Jenna Black had a good idea, but she let me down. I just don’t understand why an apparently intelligent and educated woman would choose to write so simplistically and transparently. Kids aren’t dumb; you don’t have to spell every little detail out to them a hundred times for them to understand you. It’s not like training a puppy. As a kid, nothing infuriated me more than being talked down to by condescending adults. I never would have finished this book were I still in the intended age bracket. In my more visceral years I would have hucked the thing across the room and picked up an Anne Rice.
Young adults are exactly that, young adults. Black insults young readers everywhere with her vapid, boy-crazy idiot of a protagonist, Dana Hathaway. Dana ditches her alcoholic mom to meet her biological father—whom she has never met, but has been told her whole life is a dangerous, power hungry jerk—in the gateway city of Avalon, which resides in England and marks the border between the human and faerie worlds. (I would have thought that this gateway between our world and that of the Tuatha Dé Danann , if it existed, would be more likely to show up in Ireland than England. But that’s beside the point).
This move, as foolhardy as it is, is actually the only decision Dana makes for herself that moves the plot forward in any way. After this, it’s all Dana being dragged from one catastrophe to the next by her menacing Aunt Grace, the too-good-to-be-true-lover-boy (or is he?) Ethan, her insta-best-friend Kimber, her father, and basically anyone who bats his eyelashes at her. Dana is a textbook passive character (not good, especially for a protagonist).
None of the characters have well-rounded personalities or believable motivations. The closest we get is Kimber, who has a complicated relationship with her brother Ethan (who remains seemingly unaware of their issues), but we are not given to understand why she finds herself so attached to Dana. The only character I felt like I actually understood was Dana’s mom.
If I had to live with Dana for sixteen years, I’d be driven to drink too.
The ending is sadly predictable. Here’s a hint, Jenna Black, if your protagonist is suspicious of everyone it will never be surprising when the true bad guy is revealed. The only surprising aspect of Glimmerglass’s ending was the fact that Black was able to pick one antagonist and stick to it. I almost expected a giant conspiracy where everyone was working against Dana just like she thought all along, because that’s how transparent the rest of the plot was.
I likely won’t be reading the next installment in the series.
Unless it has an even prettier cover…
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