Ramblings of a Young Aussie Writer

Glimmerglass (Faeriewalker #1)

Jenna Black

3.5 Star Review

I picked this book up because it rated well on Goodreads and the blurb looked interesting. It didn’t quite live up to that rating for me, unfortunately.

Positives – I believe first impressions count and the cover of this book was certainly beautiful and intriguing. The storyline started off well and it was easy to empathise with Dana as she battled through teenage life with the extra burden of her mother constantly being drunk. I liked Dana’s character although I felt the reader wasn’t given enough of a description of appearance. She seemed like a responsible teenager whose motives were mostly plausible which made for a nice change from many other protagonists. Ethan was also a cool character and his sister Kimber was freshly honest. The story certainly had potential and I did enjoy reading it but the ending was its biggest downfall.

Negatives – There were a lot of things that weren’t explained and I felt it was assumed that the reader understood many concepts without any explanation at all. With a few of the characters, their motives didn’t quite fit or were hard to grasp. The ending was fairly rushed and anticlimactic. For all the build-up, I honestly expected more.

Overall – The book was a nice length and had hardly any unnecessary scenes. I did enjoy reading about most of the main characters and the storyline had potential. Unfortunately it didn’t quite eventuate into anything fantastic but for a quick read it was entertaining. I gave this book 3.5 stars as I enjoyed it but it didn’t really impress me and certainly didn’t have any kind of impact on me. When I finish a book, I want to be left feeling like ‘wow’ but it wasn’t the case with this book. I’m considering reading the second book to see if Jenna Black has harnessed that potential and turned it into a great second book.

BLURB – (From Goodreads)

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.

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 new-found 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.