Review: Glimmerglass

Glimmerglass by Jenna Black

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the first Jenna Black novel I've read. While I don't know yet if I want to try her adult books yet, I will definitely pick up a copy of the next book in the Faeriewalker series.



Dana Hathaway is fed up with her mother. They've been moving frequently throughout her childhood and teen years in order to stay off Dana's father's radar, and the moves have made life extremely unpleasant for Dana. Whenever she becomes close to someone, it's time to move again. In addition to the moves, her mother is an alcoholic, and Dana is ashamed of her. Since they move so often, Dana doesn't have a friend or support network to help her deal with the situation. When her mom drives herself to Dana's voice recital--falling down drunk--she's had enough.



Dana has always known that her father was Fae. Her mother (when sober) claimed that he was a bad, bad, man and she fled Avalon with Dana to keep them safe. When drunk, she admitted that he was a good guy but that being near him would turn Dana into a pawn in the politics of the Fae. Unable to bear her mother's drinking any longer, Dana contacts her father and arranges to run away to Avalon.



Avalon is a unique city, and one of the most interesting parts of Black's created world. Avalon is the one place that's both within the borders of Faerie and the mortal world. Both technology and magic work in Avalon. Upon her arrival there, Dana quickly becomes enmeshed in the power struggles between people and Fae that she never knew existed. She's kidnapped, and rescued by other kidnappers . . . Everyone wants her in their custody, as her very presence is enough to change the balance of power completely. As the cover copy explains, Dana is a Faeriewalker--the only living person that can cross between Faerie and the mortal realm at will. She can bring magic to the mortal realm and technology to Faerie. As one character explains, she's the equivalent of a nuclear missile.



Through all of this, one thing quickly becomes clear to Dana: she must become capable of securing her own safety. And she needs to learn who she can trust.



I read this novel in less than four hours. As soon as I picked it up, I did not want to put it down, and I'm sure that I read it again before the summer's out. Black has an excellent sense of pacing, and she constantly ratchets up the tension in the book. This book is not literature, but Black's prose is smooth and fits the narrative well. Dana doesn't always make good decisions in the course of the book, but Black does make those choices believable. The secondary characters are interesting, and while most of them want to use Dana for their own ends, their motives are often complicated.



I've been disappointed by many of the YA paranormals in recent years, and this book has many of the tropes that are so often overused (flirting with real social problems like alcohol, a willingness to discuss sex & sexuality, magic on the edges of everyday life, and the mysterious heritage of our otherwise desperate-to-be-normal heroine . . .). However, that said, Black's Avalon and Dana's character are both interesting enough to move beyond the realm of stereotype and into the realm of good storytelling.



I look forward to book two. (The Erl-King? How awesome will he be?!)



Edit: on my second read, I can say that I still really enjoy this book. This time through, I noticed just how much Dana's mother's addiction shapes Dana. Very well done.



View all my reviews