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The Glare
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After ten years of living on an isolated, tech-free ranch with her mother, sixteen-year-old Hedda is going back to the world of the Glare-her word for cell phones, computers, and tablets. Hedda was taught to be afraid of technology, afraid that it would get inside her mind and hurt her. But now she's going to stay with her dad in California, where she was born, and she's f
...more
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Hardcover, 336 pages
Published
July 14th 2020
by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
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A deadly game on the Dark Web. A girl kept away from technology for ten years. Until now....
Hedda is 16 and has spent the past 10 years on an isolated ranch with her mother, protected from what she calls "the glare" of screens and the internet. We know that something traumatic happened when she was six, and now she's going to spend a few months living with her dad and stepmom. Back in the world of technology for the first time in a decade. She begins having flashbacks of lost memories and re-dis ...more
Hedda is 16 and has spent the past 10 years on an isolated ranch with her mother, protected from what she calls "the glare" of screens and the internet. We know that something traumatic happened when she was six, and now she's going to spend a few months living with her dad and stepmom. Back in the world of technology for the first time in a decade. She begins having flashbacks of lost memories and re-dis ...more

This was another YA thriller miss for me. This had so much potential and went so far off the rails at the end that it couldn't be saved. We start off with the potential to be creeped out when a dark web game takes itself offline and starts tormenting its players but along the line we seriously lose grip on the real "villain".
CW: Some questionable comments: casual throwing around of "well, he's not a date rapist but maybe be careful" and also potentially outting a character's sexuality ("have it ...more
CW: Some questionable comments: casual throwing around of "well, he's not a date rapist but maybe be careful" and also potentially outting a character's sexuality ("have it ...more

My allocated reading times are: 1. When I’m on the treadmill, and 2. When I’m curled up in bed.
But I couldn’t read THE GLARE in bed...because HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS IT IS SO CREEPY. But that’s okay, because THE GLARE is so good that I found myself looking forward to my treadmill sessions. Yes, this book is so good that it made me look forward to EXERCISING. If that’s not magical, then I don’t know what is.
The beginning made me think it was going to be like a Black Mirror-ish type thing where scree ...more
But I couldn’t read THE GLARE in bed...because HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS IT IS SO CREEPY. But that’s okay, because THE GLARE is so good that I found myself looking forward to my treadmill sessions. Yes, this book is so good that it made me look forward to EXERCISING. If that’s not magical, then I don’t know what is.
The beginning made me think it was going to be like a Black Mirror-ish type thing where scree ...more

The full review + more can be found at The Book Bratz
*Thank you so much Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review THE GLARE*
Content Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, self harm, suicide, death, underage drinking, drugs, psychological torment, murder.
Dark Web. Psychological Thriller. Horror. Alright, I was sold immediately. I am really glad I gave this book a shot, I enjoyed it so much more then I thought I would. I stayed up until 4 a.m. to finish ...more
*Thank you so much Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review THE GLARE*
Content Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, self harm, suicide, death, underage drinking, drugs, psychological torment, murder.
Dark Web. Psychological Thriller. Horror. Alright, I was sold immediately. I am really glad I gave this book a shot, I enjoyed it so much more then I thought I would. I stayed up until 4 a.m. to finish ...more

I'm glad that I got the opportunity to read this.
The Glare is basically Creepy Pasta meets The Ring, which I think is perfect for a YA Horror storyline.
All that I will divulge about the story is that there is an urban legend about a video game on the dark web and it's called The Glare. If the player dies on level 13, 13 times, then they are cursed to die in real life.
In the first third of the book, I was afraid that it was going to be more about a young girl that has been basically traumatize ...more
The Glare is basically Creepy Pasta meets The Ring, which I think is perfect for a YA Horror storyline.
All that I will divulge about the story is that there is an urban legend about a video game on the dark web and it's called The Glare. If the player dies on level 13, 13 times, then they are cursed to die in real life.
In the first third of the book, I was afraid that it was going to be more about a young girl that has been basically traumatize ...more

Hi! I wrote this book, and I hope you enjoy its dark twists and turns. Because The Glare is a thriller with strong horror elements, I want to provide some content warnings, under the spoiler tags:
(view spoiler)
If you're a reader and find something I've missed here, please message me—I appreciate it ...more
(view spoiler)
If you're a reader and find something I've missed here, please message me—I appreciate it ...more

The Glare by Margot Harrison, 327 pages. Hyperion (Disney Book Group), 2020. $18
Language: R (53 Swears, 8 ‘F’ words); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: PG-13
BUYING ADVISORY: HS – OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH
Hedda has spent the last ten years living in seclusion on a ranch with her mom. Her mom tells her she did this for Hedda’s own good, because when Hedda was 6 years old she had an experience with digital devices (which Hedda called “the glare”) that sent her “off-kilter.” Hedda now has to face ...more
Language: R (53 Swears, 8 ‘F’ words); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: PG-13
BUYING ADVISORY: HS – OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH
Hedda has spent the last ten years living in seclusion on a ranch with her mom. Her mom tells her she did this for Hedda’s own good, because when Hedda was 6 years old she had an experience with digital devices (which Hedda called “the glare”) that sent her “off-kilter.” Hedda now has to face ...more

The summary of this book had my attention. A girl named Hedda lives out in the middle of bum frick nowhere in Arizona with no technology, which she calls the glare. Then she moves in with her dad in California. They have technology like crazy and what does she end up doing? Get's on the dark web. Oh yeah, because we all just browse the dark web for fun these days when we have a cell phone!
Anyway, she finds this game and if you die thirteen times on level 13 you will die in real life. Basically ...more
Anyway, she finds this game and if you die thirteen times on level 13 you will die in real life. Basically ...more

I loved the description of this book as soon as I read it: 16-year-old Hedda was raised an isolated ranch & taught to fear technology, and when she returns to real world, she gets caught up in a deadly video game on the dark web - AHHH! The eeriness of the story creeps up on you slowly and steadily, making you question what's real, until all hell breaks loose, leading toward a wild, rewarding showdown at the end. The approach to technology is delicately handled - the book's not trying to make an
...more

The story of Hedda trying to remember her past as she frets about her present and future is thrilling and the plot is well constructed. It is a lot like the play on endorphins that technology plays in the book. The only feeling is I don't like about the book is the "mom" tone that you can feel is constantly preaching to you about how addictive technology can be. I'm sure that is the point of the novel, to make you think about how technology is used in your life. But some themes are better left l
...more

While I'm not typically a YA reader, I enjoyed Harrison's fresh take on modern horror. In a genre that has been pounded into the ground, it is hard to break new ground, but The Glare practically reinvents the ghost story by creating ghouls that are not necessarily supernatural, but more a product of present-day technology -- or, more specifically, a product of the detrimental cognitive effects of this technology.
The Glare follows a teenaged girl, Hedda, who has just moved back to the Bay Area of ...more
The Glare follows a teenaged girl, Hedda, who has just moved back to the Bay Area of ...more

My first foray into literary "cyber-horror," a subgenre classification I only recently learned about through Margot Harrison's excellent New York Times essay "The Horror Novel Lurking in Your Busy Online Life," has set a very high bar! The Glare is inventive, scary, suspenseful, and, despite its potentially off-putting designation as "YA lit," boasts appreciably smarter dialogue and characterization than your average Young Adult offering; the story traffics in nuanced emotion, not on-the-nose em
...more

Oct 28, 2020
Thalyta S.
rated it
really liked it
Shelves:
page-turner,
read-in-english,
audiobooks,
big-plot-twist,
ya,
mystery,
thrillers,
2020-reads
The glare is about Hedda, she has been living away from technology for the past 10 years because of a traumatic event that happened when she was young. Now, she must return to the world of technology and uncover what really happened in her past.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The plot was well thought-out, the mystery kept me guessing all the way to the end, and the spooky atmosphere really sucked me in! Also, I really enjoyed Hedda's development as a character and her learning to limit her ...more
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The plot was well thought-out, the mystery kept me guessing all the way to the end, and the spooky atmosphere really sucked me in! Also, I really enjoyed Hedda's development as a character and her learning to limit her ...more

This is coming off as preachy so I'm having a hard time getting into it.
...more

There's a slightly fraught aspect to reading a friend's book. By the same token, it's a great feeling to get to the end of one of those books and eagerly look forward to telling your friend how much you liked the novel. Which is the case here. The thriller story itself is absolutely compelling, but it's Margot Harrison's writing and character creation that really sold me. The voice of her teenaged character is exactly what I love in a YA novel -- believable, unaffected, consistent, and fully aut
...more

It's kind of ironic that I read The Glare at a time when I was trying to cut down on my own screen time. Otherwise, I think I would quite happily have sailed through this in a sitting or two - the writing is lovely, with an absorbing slow burn plot that draws you in and then accelerates in the second half as the stakes increase. The premise - an addictive first person shooter where, if you die thirteen times on level thirteen, you die in real life - comes straight from horror land, and while the
...more

You will never look at your phone the same way again after reading this! This was one of the most chilling books I've read, and I loved that it's scary on two levels. First, there's all this downright terrifying stuff happening to the characters as a result of them playing the Glare, but second, on a more subtle and worrying level, there is all this stuff about the internet, addiction, social media, gaming, and the ways screens have taken over pretty much all areas of our lives. I found it thoug
...more

4.5 stars
Thank you to Netgalley and Margot Harrison for an e-copy in exchange for my honest review.
"The only winning move is not to play."
Harrison has done it again with the Glare. Like her first book The Killer In Me, this book had me on the edge of my seat needing to know what was happening and what was causing it.
Hedda has lived tech-free since the age of six when something happened to scare him, mom, into taking them as far away from the city, and tech-life as possible. Now at the age of s ...more
Thank you to Netgalley and Margot Harrison for an e-copy in exchange for my honest review.
"The only winning move is not to play."
Harrison has done it again with the Glare. Like her first book The Killer In Me, this book had me on the edge of my seat needing to know what was happening and what was causing it.
Hedda has lived tech-free since the age of six when something happened to scare him, mom, into taking them as far away from the city, and tech-life as possible. Now at the age of s ...more

The most annoying thing is the whole absolute world is when you KNOW that you're right, or that what you're saying is true, and people refuse to listen or believe you.
A very close second is when people (usually parents) keep VERY IMPORTANT information away from the people it pertains, which always comes back to bite them in the butt. How hard is it to have those conversations with someone so you can introduce it gradually and make sure they understand??
So our poor Hedda heads out into the world ...more
A very close second is when people (usually parents) keep VERY IMPORTANT information away from the people it pertains, which always comes back to bite them in the butt. How hard is it to have those conversations with someone so you can introduce it gradually and make sure they understand??
So our poor Hedda heads out into the world ...more

“I can see you! It’s going to get inside, you too!”
The Glare is basically The Ring meet One Missed Called meets Creepy Pasta. The prefect YA horror story.
The glare, if a player dies on level 13, 13 times, then they are cursed to die in real life. When Hadda is introduced to the game and then introduces it to her friends and the chain reaction begins and the story definitely starts to get interesting.
“The expertly balanced reality-blurring storyline and strategic technology depictions seed psyc ...more
The Glare is basically The Ring meet One Missed Called meets Creepy Pasta. The prefect YA horror story.
The glare, if a player dies on level 13, 13 times, then they are cursed to die in real life. When Hadda is introduced to the game and then introduces it to her friends and the chain reaction begins and the story definitely starts to get interesting.
“The expertly balanced reality-blurring storyline and strategic technology depictions seed psyc ...more

Allow me to start off saying I really enjoyed this book. It had likeable, somewhat relatable characters, {initially} relatable scenarios and the plot made sense, for the most part. Of course, I can't entirely compare this book to my personal experiences, because as far as I know, we don't have any first person shooter games from the dark web that cause us to go insane until we die. However, the opening of the book seemed relatable enough if we put ourselves in Hedda's position. I can't say I wou
...more

This book is deliciously creepy!! Adding such a high creep factor to the intense, lengthy screen time most of us have today is brilliant. I loved the characters. The plot hooks you pretty quickly and gets creepier as you read...Did I mention it’s creepy?? I would love to read more books by Margot!
Heddy’s mom has sheltered her from The Glare (Heddy’s designation for technology with screens) for most of her life. They fled their high tech life in California when Heddy was 6. She has always been ta ...more
Heddy’s mom has sheltered her from The Glare (Heddy’s designation for technology with screens) for most of her life. They fled their high tech life in California when Heddy was 6. She has always been ta ...more

Hedda has been living with her mother on an isolated tech-free ranch for ten years. Now she is returning to California to visit her father, while her mother visits a sick friend. Hedda doesn't remember much of her life before moving to the ranch. She does remember her friend, Mireya, and her neighbor, Ellis, and Ellis's sister, who was her babysitter. Something happened to the babysitter and Hedda has suffered from nightmares ever since.
She returns to California - the world of the Glare - deter ...more
She returns to California - the world of the Glare - deter ...more

Sometimes you just need a campy B horror movie, and this is the bookish equivalent.
There’s plenty of creep factor as more and more teens get sucked into an addictive game on the Dark Web and meet various gruesome ends. I appreciated Harrison’s cinematic writing and the diversity and development of secondary characters.
Teen readers may or may not pick up on the gentle digs Harrison weaves in about our screen-obsessed culture, but they’ll enjoy the twists and turns along the way.
Thanks to Hachett ...more
There’s plenty of creep factor as more and more teens get sucked into an addictive game on the Dark Web and meet various gruesome ends. I appreciated Harrison’s cinematic writing and the diversity and development of secondary characters.
Teen readers may or may not pick up on the gentle digs Harrison weaves in about our screen-obsessed culture, but they’ll enjoy the twists and turns along the way.
Thanks to Hachett ...more

This. Book. Is. AWESOME! It had me looking around my bedroom for monsters and stay awake till 2 in the morning. I read it in one sitting! The book wasn't focused on the romance making their friendship even more sweet. The author kept me guessing who the creator was and I was so sure on who it was but she kept on proving me wrong. LOVED IT
...more

I wanted to like this more, and I give it an extra star because I need to remember it is YA. I think I may judge it too harshly otherwise. I like the idea of the plot, and found a lot of the characters believable, but The resolution seemed forced after all of the plot buildup. I found a bit of the language used for descriptions really well done, and some very confusing.
Its a good story,
Its a good story,

Have to say that I almost DNF'd this book the beginning was a slow start but I'm glad I persevered. It turned out to be an exciting book to read that had me turning pages faster than I could read...almost. An online game that can embed in your mind even when your aren't playing. "The only way to win is not to play at all"
...more

Nov 19, 2020
Amanda Shepard (Between-the-Shelves)
rated it
really liked it
Shelves:
young-adult,
dystopia
This is going to sit somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me, so I rounded up. The story is suspenseful and the plot unwinds in a twist manner, but almost all of the side characters felt flat to me. The plot makes you keep turning the pages, though! I just wanted more from the characters.
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Margot Harrison was raised in the wilds of New York by lovely, nonviolent parents who somehow never managed to prevent her from staying up late to read scary books. She now works at an alt-weekly newspaper in Vermont, where her favorite part of the job is, of course, reviewing scary books and movies.
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Sep 22, 2020 09:17PM