Book Review: Glimmerglass by Jenna Black

Title: Glimmerglass (Faeriewalker #1)
Author: Jenna Black
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: 03/25/10
ISBN: 0312575939







On first glance this book might just seem to be more of the same stuff that's been coming out ever since Melissa Marr & Holly Black started becoming the golden standard of urban fantasy faerie stories. (I know I always say that, but it's true- they're what you want your books to be like, at least in my opinion.) Black does one thing with this book that I have to say I sort of like: none of the characters are the type you instantly like. Everyone's shades of grey here- there's no definite black or white.

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...

Right off the bat, I'm going to be honest & say that this isn't the deepest of books. Much of the plot involves Dana getting yanked from one location to another with everyone telling her it's "for her own safety". I kind of got irritated at that because here's a location that Black goes out of her way to say is beautiful & intricate, but we get to see very little of it. Even when Dana has one of her rare opportunities to walk about freely, there's very little description of this world or the people in it. I know there's more books yet to come, but it's very frustrating that it isn't here in the first book.

However, the book is incredibly easy to read & readers will find themselves quickly falling under Black's spell. There are also two different guys who are potential love interests for Dana & while one of them is (in my opinion) incredibly sleazy, the guy is interesting enough to keep reading about. That brings me to something I want to mention- that none of the characters are particularly likable. Just about everyone has something wrong with them to where many readers might find themselves saying something disparaging about them. These will be things such as Dana being an idiot (she does call herself out on it later, though), Ethan being a sleaze ball in a bucket of slime (he better not end up with Dana...), & so on. Everyone is cast in shades of grey, which is nice- lots of books tend to identify one side as good, one as bad, & don't really change that overly much. Black doesn't do that here. This does have some downfalls as it makes the villain a little less imposing later on in the book, though.

Overall this isn't a bad book. It's not going to make it onto my "absolutely most favorite series" list, but it's something that I wouldn't mind reading the next book of.