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The Glittering Court (The Glittering Court, #1)

Richelle Mead

Start date: May 1, 2016

Finish date: May 31, 2016

Discussion: Currently Reading

Discussion leader: Sammy Talbot

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Currently Reading

Shatter Me
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last updated Aug 14, 2016 03:31PM

Uprooted by Naomi Novik
By Sammy · 5 posts · 35 views

last updated May 29, 2016 09:40PM

What Members Thought

Jan 29, 2016 Sammy Talbot rated it did not like it

Well, that was disappointing. :(

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Jan 27, 2016 Sam Kyle rated it liked it

It's nice to see Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series, try her hand at writing a completely different kind of fantasy. You won't find any sexy vampires in The Glittering Court. The only thing that really makes it fantasy instead of historical fiction is that Mead assigned different names to all the countries and the established religion is slightly different. While it was interesting to see the parallels between the world of the book and established historical fact, It's nice to see Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy and Bloodlines series, try her hand at writing a completely different kind of fantasy. You won't find any sexy vampires in The Glittering Court. The only thing that really makes it fantasy instead of historical fiction is that Mead assigned different names to all the countries and the established religion is slightly different. While it was interesting to see the parallels between the world of the book and established historical fact, I would have loved to see a bit more inventiveness when Mead created her fantasy world.

The main characters are likable enough but I had trouble connecting with them. The romance between Adelaide and Cedric was a bit predictable and I couldn't really sense a lot of romantic tension between them. Their relationship seemed to develop too quickly.

There is a sense of incompleteness to this novel - which is understandable seeing as the next two books in the series will tell the story from the POVs of two other characters. I could tell that there was something else going on behind the scenes - it was intriguing but also a little bit frustrating.

The ending is a bit of a mess. It seemed to be all over the place and with those missing POVs, there was no sense that all of the loose ends were tied up neatly. I realize she can't give everything away and has to maintain a sense of mystery for the future installments but it just left me feeling disappointed.

Here's what I liked: Mead continues to evolve as a writer and her descriptions are so vivid that I found the story playing like a movie in my head. There were some sentences in here that dazzled me. I also liked the feminist aspect of the book. I loved how the friendship between the three girls was portrayed in the first half of the book even though that aspect kind of got shoved aside in the second half.

I feel Richelle Mead is experimenting a little bit with this series and I applaud her for taking risks. However, there is room for improvement in the series and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does in the next two installments.
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