#13 All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
This review has spoilers for Shattered Mirror, also by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. This has not been advertised well, but All Just Glass is
actually the sequel to Shattered Mirror. There are no real spoilers for All Just Glass.
Sarah Vida has done the unthinkable. She has become a vampire, one of the creatures she once hunted. Now her family has called upon fellow witches to help them kill Sarah, putting Adia Vida in charge of the hunt. Sarah remains in a state of confusion over her new state as a vampire, as Adia struggles with the task of killing her younger sister.
Before I begin this review, I want to make things clear. I was never a huge fan of Shattered Mirror, the prequel to All Just Glass. When I heard that All Just Glass was next in line for publication, I decided I would do my best to put aside my prejudices and read All Just Glass with a set of fresh eyes. Unfortunately, I still came out of the book feeling that All Just Glass was an unnecessary sequel. In her introduction, Atwater-Rhodes mentions that she struggled for ten years to write All Just Glass before she was satisfied. I have to give her credit for not putting out a novel she felt was sub-par, despite the obvious fan demand, and instead chose to wait. Unfortunately, there are still too many things about this novel that do not work.
To start with, I often found myself questioning the believability of the twenty-four hour time-table, especially in the beginning. I eventually decided to ignore the time stamp at the beginning of each chapter. All Just Glass also makes use of a third person omniscient point of view. I suspect this was done to give us a better idea of what is going on in each characters' head, therefore developing them more fully. This is a nice idea, but it just ends up dragging the story down, as too much time is spent on the characters own reflections, and not enough progressing the storyline. As a result, it feels as if we get a lot of information, but not much actually happens in this book. Occasionally, I would read an interesting scene, which would convince me that the novel was finally picking up. I was disappointed when I discovered that I was wrong.
I also struggled to connect with most of the cast of characters. I don't recall Sarah feeling so bland from reading Shattered Mirror in 2001. Despite being the central character in the novel, she feels too passive. I appreciate the attempts to make her a character that doesn't need a boyfriend to survive, especially given the current state of young adult literature, but I feel as if she never came off as strong as she needed to be. All Just Glass ends with a big twist, but it had almost not emotional impact on me. I had never grown to care about the characters, so I didn't have that much investment in the directions of their lives.
Despite all of my criticisms listed above, All Just Glass was not a book that angered or frustrated me, just disappointed me. Given how this is the second Amy book in the past three years to let me down (I did not like Persistence of Memory, although I felt Token of Darkness was flawed but enjoyable), it makes me worry about the next book to be published, Poison Tree, the sequel to Midnight Predator.
Rating: two stars
Length: 256 pages
Source: Lewiston Public Library
Other books I've read by this author: In the Forests of the Night, Demon in my View, Shattered Mirror, Midnight Predator, Hawksong, Snakecharm, Falcondance, Wolfcry, Wyvernhail, and Persistence of Memory ( my review), Token of Darkness ( my review)
xposted to temporaryworlds , bookish , and goodreads
actually the sequel to Shattered Mirror. There are no real spoilers for All Just Glass.
Sarah Vida has done the unthinkable. She has become a vampire, one of the creatures she once hunted. Now her family has called upon fellow witches to help them kill Sarah, putting Adia Vida in charge of the hunt. Sarah remains in a state of confusion over her new state as a vampire, as Adia struggles with the task of killing her younger sister.
Before I begin this review, I want to make things clear. I was never a huge fan of Shattered Mirror, the prequel to All Just Glass. When I heard that All Just Glass was next in line for publication, I decided I would do my best to put aside my prejudices and read All Just Glass with a set of fresh eyes. Unfortunately, I still came out of the book feeling that All Just Glass was an unnecessary sequel. In her introduction, Atwater-Rhodes mentions that she struggled for ten years to write All Just Glass before she was satisfied. I have to give her credit for not putting out a novel she felt was sub-par, despite the obvious fan demand, and instead chose to wait. Unfortunately, there are still too many things about this novel that do not work.
To start with, I often found myself questioning the believability of the twenty-four hour time-table, especially in the beginning. I eventually decided to ignore the time stamp at the beginning of each chapter. All Just Glass also makes use of a third person omniscient point of view. I suspect this was done to give us a better idea of what is going on in each characters' head, therefore developing them more fully. This is a nice idea, but it just ends up dragging the story down, as too much time is spent on the characters own reflections, and not enough progressing the storyline. As a result, it feels as if we get a lot of information, but not much actually happens in this book. Occasionally, I would read an interesting scene, which would convince me that the novel was finally picking up. I was disappointed when I discovered that I was wrong.
I also struggled to connect with most of the cast of characters. I don't recall Sarah feeling so bland from reading Shattered Mirror in 2001. Despite being the central character in the novel, she feels too passive. I appreciate the attempts to make her a character that doesn't need a boyfriend to survive, especially given the current state of young adult literature, but I feel as if she never came off as strong as she needed to be. All Just Glass ends with a big twist, but it had almost not emotional impact on me. I had never grown to care about the characters, so I didn't have that much investment in the directions of their lives.
Despite all of my criticisms listed above, All Just Glass was not a book that angered or frustrated me, just disappointed me. Given how this is the second Amy book in the past three years to let me down (I did not like Persistence of Memory, although I felt Token of Darkness was flawed but enjoyable), it makes me worry about the next book to be published, Poison Tree, the sequel to Midnight Predator.
Rating: two stars
Length: 256 pages
Source: Lewiston Public Library
Other books I've read by this author: In the Forests of the Night, Demon in my View, Shattered Mirror, Midnight Predator, Hawksong, Snakecharm, Falcondance, Wolfcry, Wyvernhail, and Persistence of Memory ( my review), Token of Darkness ( my review)
xposted to temporaryworlds , bookish , and goodreads