Title: GLIMMERGLASS (Faeriewalker #1)
Author: Jenna Black
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Release Date: May 25, 2010
Number of Pages: 294
Source of Book: Borrowed the paperback from a student who recommended it
Author’s Website: www.jennablack.com/books_ya.htm
Goodreads Summary:
Normal. It’s all she’s ever wanted to be, but it couldn’t be further from her grasp…
Dana Hathaway doesn’t know it yet, but she’s in big trouble. When her alcoholic mom shows up at her voice recital drunk, again, Dana decides she’s had enough and runs away to find her mysterious father in Avalon: the only place on Earth where the regular, everyday world and the captivating, magical world of Faerie intersect. But from the moment Dana sets foot in Avalon, everything goes wrong, for it turns out she isn’t just an ordinary teenage girl—she’s a Faeriewalker, a rare individual who can travel between both worlds, and the only person who can bring magic into the human world and technology into Faerie.
Soon, Dana finds herself tangled up in a cutthroat game of Fae politics. Someone’s trying to kill her, and everyone seems to want something from her, from her newfound friends and family to Ethan, the hot Fae guy Dana figures she’ll never have a chance with… until she does. Caught between two worlds, Dana isn’t sure where she’ll ever fit in and who can be trusted, not to mention if her world will ever be normal again…
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This book was pretty good, but it took me awhile to really get into it. I just wasn’t that invested in the characters to start with, but by the end of the book, I did really want to know what was going to happen. It’s written well and in a style that kept me interested and turning the pages. Dana really just wants to be normal, but it seems that isn’t ever going to happen. I liked the world that Dana was learning about as she went to live with her dad and entered into the world of the Fae. By the time I got to the point where there are boys, bodyguards, friends, and relatives all fighting to control Dana because of her faeriewalker status leading to Dana needing to take matters into her own hands, I started to really get interested. I liked Dana’s take-charge and sarcastic personality. The characters around her were interesting, too, if a little bit surface-level.
Overall, there’s a definite feeling of this book being a setup for the rest of the series. So, although things were happening to Dana throughout that built suspense, the entirety of the book felt like it was setting up the world of Avalon and the human vs. faerie existence and the Seelie vs. Unseelie fae battles, to prepare for where the story is going next. By the last page, I was very interested to see where the story will go and was more of a fan of Dana and the other characters around her, and I’m expecting to get deeper with all of them in the next book.
3 STARS for GLIMMERGLASS
Book 2, Shadowspell, was released on January 4th. Book 3, Sirensong, is coming July 5, 2011.
