Glow is the story of Waverly. Waverly is the oldest girl in
her generation, the first generation of children to be born on board the
Empyrean, after a bout of infertility. Their ship and another just like it, the
New Horizon, have left Earth for a new planet the believe they can colonize
after Earth’s resources start running out and it becomes an unbearable place to
live. However something goes wrong.
In the heart of a
nebula New Horizon, which should be so far ahead of the Empyrean that they can’t
see it, has slowed down enough so that they are almost side along with Waverly’s
ship. Crew members from the New Horizon board the Empyrean and quickly
everything goes down hill. The girls are taken from their homes, most of the
adults are killed, the Empyrean is sabotaged and the boys are left to cope by
themselves without a clue. Amidst chaos and fear Waverly must learn that power
corrupts, everyone has secrets and but most importantly; how to find a way back home
Today I thought I’d write a review for Glow. Both from the
cover and the genre of this book I thought it would be painfully like Across
the Universe, which I did not like, and so I was incredibly apprehensive about
reading this at first. In fact I didn’t even bother to check out the
description, so turned off by the idea it might compare to a book that had disappointed me as much as Across the Universe had done.
The characters are good for the must part, Waverly definitely feels like a
tough chick. Unlike so many lead protagonists she does not "umm" and "ahh" about
things. She acts. She finds things out, changes what she doesn’t like, stands
up against what she doesn’t believe in and battles through out. Some of the other
characters like Kieran and Seth also feel well rounded and actually like
people, but there is not much more than 5 or 10 characters that feel like that.
A lot of the side characters feel flat and uninteresting.
The world building was decent. I felt like this book had
enough scientific knowledge in it, although not great amounts. I was a little
annoyed during the vacuum scene where it was obvious that the author didn’t
know what would actually happen if someone died in a vacuum. However the
differences between the two ships in terms of crew felt very real and I did
like the way religion was shown in this book. It can give hope and create
peace, but it can also be a dangerous weapon of power over people.
My biggest issue with this book was the pacing. Every few
chapters we’d get a sentence randomly in an event which said “a few months
passed like this” or “after a few months” etc... but it didn’t feel like a few
months had passed, nor did it feel like some of the issues should have taken so
long to resolve. If you are desperate and angry some things should take weeks
at best to overcome. As well as the events in this apparently taking so long no
one aged, not one person had a birthday. I know it’s unlikely they’d celebrate
a birthday but it could have been mentioned if this book supposedly spans
months and months. And the timelines where events where happening on the
Empyrean and events were happening on New Horizon didn’t seem to match very
well, they could have been happening more clearly at the same or different
times.
Over all this book was decent. A good quick read, but it was
by no means beautifully written or well thought out really. Science was used
when it helped the plot and that was about it, the issues it tackled were good
but they could have been handled better. Overall it was decent but not book of
the year for me even though I enjoyed Waverly’s character and the storyline I
don’t think it was executed as well as it could have been.
Also what's with the name Glow? Trying to sell to tweeny little girls much?
Paperback, UK Edition, 385 pages
Published
October 7th 2011
by Macmillan Children's Books (first published September 13th 2011)
ISBN: 0330535587
(ISBN13: 9780330535588)
Edition language: English
Original title: Glow
Series: Sky Chasers #1
-Iona
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