Jenn's Review: Glimmerglass

Summary:  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…

Review: It took me a little bit to get into this book because I had to adjust my expectations. When I think faeries, I think more along the lines of Barrie than Lewis & Tolkien. Once I got that straightened away, I found it an agreeable read.

The premise of this story is what sets it apart. The concept of a magical world, openly recognized by a non-magical one, only overlapping in one magical city-state on the top of a mountain is intriguing. It gives way to so many possibilities. I found the Faes culture and society to be thought provoking and rich with characters.

It is Dana, the protagonist, that detracts from the story for me. She is a whiny, self-absorbed, romance-crazed teen. Yes, I know that there are lots of those teens out there. I just don't necessarily want to read about them. There are several times in the story when I wished I could reach through the pages and shake her. She's had a tough life and she's in a sticky situation, but that doesn't excuse her behavior. If it weren't for the spectacular plot and fascinating secondary characters, I might not have continued to read. However, Jenna Black has written such marvelous world, that I couldn't help but be pulled in despite Dana's many flaws.

It is seldom that I feel the desire to read a sequel when I don't care for the main character, but I feel that I have only glimpsed the tip of the 'mountain', as it were, when it comes to Ms. Black's magical world. I am anxious to learn more, and I hope that Dana will gain some sense along the way, because it would be a shame for the books to suffer because the heroine is weak. Shadowspell, book two in the Faeriewalker series, just came out last week and it's definitely going on my TBR wish list.

Final Take: 3.75/5.0