Reviews

The Shadow in the Glass by J.J.A. Harwood

angibreads's review

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No

2.0

siera_walker's review

slow-paced

2.0

klaskey's review

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

spookygrrrl's review against another edition

mysterious sad medium-paced

2.75

stephanben's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

jo_moyes's review

4.0

There were a lot of things about this book that were great. It was dark, it was atmospheric, and the black eyed woman was, frankly, pretty terrifying. I hated Mr P passionately, and I found most of the characters to be significantly more complex than they usually are in YA novels. There were SO MANY goods things in this book. But I found the ending unsatisfying. What exactly was the black eyed woman? Why was she interested in Ella? Did Ella actually kill those people? Had she really been insane as a child? What was going to happen to Leah and her baby? Did she win the struggle at the end? I needed more of a resolution.

clairelovestoread's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

kleonard's review

1.0

In this Faustian tale, a young woman who aspires to the good life relies on a bargain with a demon--seven wishes in exchange for her soul. But while the wishes come true, most of them are accomplished by the woman herself, unknowingly murdering those in her way to achieving her goals. I'm not sure what the point of the tale is, other than perhaps you should do your murdering on your own, consciously, and do a better job of covering it up. The characters are all rather stock-in-trade eighteenth or early nineteenth century figures, and my final reaction was just "meh."

ellenadell's review

1.0

This story gets away from the author merely because her characters are all so unbelievably stupid. This book was a struggle to get through because as soon as Lizzie dies, I knew it was Ella who was committing the murders. She stole the shoes and committed all the murders. By the time she was going to kill Mr. Pembroke I was basically screaming that he needed to die of natural causes. Of course, that would have been too logical. This book was a slog, and it could have been very cool. It is only a Cinderella retelling in the loosest of terms. By that I mean Ella is made a servant by the death of a beloved parent figure and at some point she looses a silver shoe. This does not necessarily make it bad, but the story isn't interesting enough to make up for it. We know how this story ends because Ella reads Dr. Faustus and then she meets the Devil. Surprise! Everyone in this story is either awful or innocent or too stupid to be either. The fellow maids re innocent. Mr. Pembroke, Lizzie and the housekeeper are irredeemably evil and Ella is a good girl who is trying to pull herself out of her horrid situation and falls prey to a devil like character. Hard to finish book full of hard to like characters. If Ella had been smarter and Charles less insipid, maybe a different story. However, that is not what happened. One star.

klara_badalikova's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0