Glimmerglass by Jenna Black Review

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black

Review NO SPOILERS

4.45 out of 5 Stars

I really enjoyed this book. It is one of those books were they are purely entertaining and you can fly through it in a day. Glimmerglass is a book that you can fall into and escape from reality. There are faeries, English people, magic, and so many fun things thrown together into one book. I also feel like the characters had very real responses. At least, the main character did. Often, the heroine or protagonist of a story is very brave or bold or witty- and that's great! But it's also nice to have a character that would react to certain situations in a more mundane manner every now and then.
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CHARACTERS:
Dana: This is the character that I'm talking about when I say that they had "real responses". She is thrown into this world that she knew of, but hadn't really experienced for herself, and on top of that, MORE crap gets thrown at her and she is expected to adjust at the snap of her fingers. Appropriately, I think, she just gets tired and paranoid of having to wake up and not know what is going to get tossed at her for the day. Props to her. Finds out dad's in jail. Held captive. Attacked in a cave. Sees two worlds on top of each other. Queens want to kill her. More shit. Etc. And yes, she does take it all in (rolls with the punches, etc.), but she also doesn't take crap from any bad explanations either. She's awesome!
Ethan: I do not know what to make of him yet.... Don't get me wrong- he's definitely a top contender as far as ships are concerned. But I still haven't yet figured out if he has good intentions or not. Granted, I may be slightly jaded as I write this as I am currently reading the second book, but still... he doesn't have too much going for him in this book. He uses that creepy as spell on her while their making out, and he's known to be a player that is super ambitious. His only redeeming qualities are that he jumped into the moat after her and seemed sincerely sorry for his other actions. Normally, I'd be ok with that. But he's not human.... so I'm not as trustful with only those things to go off of.....
Kimber: I do like her character. But I think she could have been developed better. I totally understand acting one way in front of someone and another way when they're gone, but still; her character seemed to jump from one personality to another a little too quickly.
Keane: First, I have to confess I have absolutely no clue how to pronounce this guy's name. Second, I have to confess I probably would not have given him attention in this review if I had not already started the second book. BUT, looking back into the first book, I can appreciate the introduction that he has here. Just don't forget him as you start to pick up the second book....
There are lots of other characters, and they are all super well rounded too. :)
WORLD:
AVALON IS A REAL PLACE!!!! Holy moly, I looked it up- Avalon is an actual island-thingy. Can I please visit?? Can the rest of the world in this book be real too?? Please??!??? In all seriousness though, I thought it was extremely interesting that in this series there is this island, that is known by the rest of the world too, that is a cross-over area where both faeries and humans coexist. There was a whole separate political system that Jenna Black created that seemed to make sense, PLUS she also expanded a little on the governments of the Fae world. She did a really good job not just using what was already there on the island in real life (like the mountain), but also throwing in the details of underground tunnels and how these two species interacted and were able to live together.
WRITING
As far as writing goes, I want to say there was nothing truly spectacular about the language that Jenna uses, but it wasn't like it was terrible either. It just, was. Which I think can be a really good thing at times. If the writing gets too complicated or hard to follow, then it can take away from the story. At the end of the day, that is what a book does- tell a story. Sometimes it's nice to have other things in there to make it prettier or something, but other times it's nice to just have the story. And I will also say that there were some funny lines too.
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I love fae books. This one reminded me of why I love them- it was slightly political, slightly adventurous, slightly romantic, and fully great and fun to read. Especially if you just need a book that you will fly through because it's entertaining, this book would be great. It is also probably a good book to pick up if you are currently in a book hangover. ;)

Thanks for reading!