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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
This wasn't quite what I was expecting, which was high fantasy. There's a bit of a old-time homestead feel towards the end. It was really good though and was a one night read.
I really the beginning of The Glittering Court. However, similar to many other reviews, the story became more tedious as it continued.
I really enjoyed Ada and Cedric's relationship at the beginning but by the end, they just bored. My favourite character was Mira and the plot holes and secrets within her story annoyed me because I don't really want to read the sequel but I did really like her character.
The book over all is weak.
I really enjoyed Ada and Cedric's relationship at the beginning but by the end, they just bored. My favourite character was Mira and the plot holes and secrets within her story annoyed me because I don't really want to read the sequel but I did really like her character.
The book over all is weak.
It had me enthralled until page 251, where it then began to feel like a piling on car crash. Theres something noteworthy to use foreshadowing, but I feel like it's lost when it's used too much.
Firstly, thanks to Penguin Random House Australia for this review copy.
Review originally posted at Fiction in Fiction in Fiction
This is not so much a review as a rant with possible spoilers because this book made me roll my eyes so much.
If you know me at all, you know I freaking love Vampire Academy. That series is one of my favourites of all time – like outside of Harry Potter, it’s probably tied for first as my favourite completed series along with Covenant. Romitri is my ultimate ship and I sing praises about VA everywhere (Shadow Kiss cabin scene hnnnng). I also quite like Bloodlines. Thus, when it was announced Richelle Mead was doing a new YA series and I saw the cover for The Glittering Court, I was like GIMME GIMME. Pretty covers: 1, Jaz: 0. I don’t know what happened with this book. I really don’t but it was a major mistake.
The tl;dr is the MC is a Countess, a descendant of one of the founders of her realm. Her family is going broke so she’s about to be married off to another rich noble to save face. She’s like nahhhh pls I don’t wanna be forced into an arranged marriage so I’ll run away to this thing where pleb girls are trained to be upper class women, then shipped off to one of the New Colonies to be married off to rich men. LIKE DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE? What she did was utterly pointless. Choice taken away from her in the beginning, only to be essentially forced into another marriage in the end? Sure she may get to somewhat ‘choose’ but not really, as you’ll see if you do decide to pick up this mess of a story.
The alias our Countess takes on is Adelaide when she runs away to join the Glittering Court. The first thing I’ll say is that I felt nothing for Adelaide. No sympathy, no pity, I could not relate to her for most of the book. Don’t want to be forced into an arranged marriage? Great I get that. But the decisions she makes ultimately have her end up in situations of powerlessness and this pissed me off so much. She throws away her title, her wealth and ties to her family so she can be trained to be something she already is. Then she gets herself into a whole lot of shit and complains that she’s suffocating again and we’re back to square one. WHYYYYYY? There was no love in the initial arranged marriage and she KNOWS that the suitors she’ll get from the Glittering Court will also be political. Pointless.
Mira and Tamsin are the main secondary characters introduced as her besties. Mira disappears a lot throughout the book doing God knows what and Tamsin is this ambitious girl who wants to be the best and marry the richest. While it’s great Adelaide has friends I didn’t see the point to these two. Their stories could really be expanded upon more and I thought they were just… Used. They were there for the sake of Adelaide’s convenience so that if anything happened, the besties were used as plot devices to get her out of trouble. Really? I’m hoping that their motives and stories are expanded upon in sequels (this seems to be a series) because this was ultimate character wastage.
Yes there’s romance, no there’s no love triangle thank goodness or I would have thrown a fit and the book too (nah not really, that cover’s still too pretty). Do I ship it? I guess? Is he comparable to Dimitri or Adrian? AHAHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE MOVE TO THE END OF THE LINE CEDRIC. I had no feels. None. I mean how did we go from Romitri and Sydrian to THIS? This… Nothing. I know I shouldn’t compare but I can’t help it. I mean don’t get me wrong, Cedric seems like a lovely young man, upstanding citizen, nice guy you get what I mean but the feels were missing. I was like ok yeah great get on with it now please.
Now the plot. What a mess. What was even going on? There was religion/heresy mixed in with the supposed challenges of inhabiting new colonies that were forcefully taken from indigenous peoples. But this wasn’t expanded upon either. It’s like Mead added these onto the side in an attempt to give this more substance than a pure Bachelor (that TV show that everybody watches but I refuse to hah) style story. It did not work at all. I got mega confused and when these were tied into the plot, especially at the end, it just added a whole lot of WTF. Like wait this was happening and it had such an effect but it was never actually talked about? I CAN’T EVEN.
This was made all the worse by poor world-building and terribad writing. It’s not a fantasy world. It’s like Mead just took early colonised USA and changed the names. Osfrid is very reminiscent of England, the Icori are basically the Scottish and the New Colonies are California during the Gold Rush. But it didn’t feel historical because the language was so modern. Minus the tech, the slang and colloquialisms were very 21st century. It’s like taking late 19th century/early 20th century US, with English fashion/customs and dropping a bunch of 21st century teens in costumes into this setting. It doesn’t work. It really doesn’t. Then add on Adelaide’s first person POV which is written in a very detached manner and it’s like I’m being told everything rather than shown. ALL THE TELLING. She breaks down into tears for a lot of things but I don’t feel anything because she TELLS me she’s crying. Her feelings aren’t explained. Everything is seen almost from behind a glass wall. Worstttttt.
Welps I just wrote a 1,000 word review for a pointless book. Rip. Save yourself 400 pages and read something better.
Review originally posted at Fiction in Fiction in Fiction
This is not so much a review as a rant with possible spoilers because this book made me roll my eyes so much.
If you know me at all, you know I freaking love Vampire Academy. That series is one of my favourites of all time – like outside of Harry Potter, it’s probably tied for first as my favourite completed series along with Covenant. Romitri is my ultimate ship and I sing praises about VA everywhere (Shadow Kiss cabin scene hnnnng). I also quite like Bloodlines. Thus, when it was announced Richelle Mead was doing a new YA series and I saw the cover for The Glittering Court, I was like GIMME GIMME. Pretty covers: 1, Jaz: 0. I don’t know what happened with this book. I really don’t but it was a major mistake.
The tl;dr is the MC is a Countess, a descendant of one of the founders of her realm. Her family is going broke so she’s about to be married off to another rich noble to save face. She’s like nahhhh pls I don’t wanna be forced into an arranged marriage so I’ll run away to this thing where pleb girls are trained to be upper class women, then shipped off to one of the New Colonies to be married off to rich men. LIKE DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM HERE? What she did was utterly pointless. Choice taken away from her in the beginning, only to be essentially forced into another marriage in the end? Sure she may get to somewhat ‘choose’ but not really, as you’ll see if you do decide to pick up this mess of a story.
The alias our Countess takes on is Adelaide when she runs away to join the Glittering Court. The first thing I’ll say is that I felt nothing for Adelaide. No sympathy, no pity, I could not relate to her for most of the book. Don’t want to be forced into an arranged marriage? Great I get that. But the decisions she makes ultimately have her end up in situations of powerlessness and this pissed me off so much. She throws away her title, her wealth and ties to her family so she can be trained to be something she already is. Then she gets herself into a whole lot of shit and complains that she’s suffocating again and we’re back to square one. WHYYYYYY? There was no love in the initial arranged marriage and she KNOWS that the suitors she’ll get from the Glittering Court will also be political. Pointless.
Mira and Tamsin are the main secondary characters introduced as her besties. Mira disappears a lot throughout the book doing God knows what and Tamsin is this ambitious girl who wants to be the best and marry the richest. While it’s great Adelaide has friends I didn’t see the point to these two. Their stories could really be expanded upon more and I thought they were just… Used. They were there for the sake of Adelaide’s convenience so that if anything happened, the besties were used as plot devices to get her out of trouble. Really? I’m hoping that their motives and stories are expanded upon in sequels (this seems to be a series) because this was ultimate character wastage.
Yes there’s romance, no there’s no love triangle thank goodness or I would have thrown a fit and the book too (nah not really, that cover’s still too pretty). Do I ship it? I guess? Is he comparable to Dimitri or Adrian? AHAHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE MOVE TO THE END OF THE LINE CEDRIC. I had no feels. None. I mean how did we go from Romitri and Sydrian to THIS? This… Nothing. I know I shouldn’t compare but I can’t help it. I mean don’t get me wrong, Cedric seems like a lovely young man, upstanding citizen, nice guy you get what I mean but the feels were missing. I was like ok yeah great get on with it now please.
Now the plot. What a mess. What was even going on? There was religion/heresy mixed in with the supposed challenges of inhabiting new colonies that were forcefully taken from indigenous peoples. But this wasn’t expanded upon either. It’s like Mead added these onto the side in an attempt to give this more substance than a pure Bachelor (that TV show that everybody watches but I refuse to hah) style story. It did not work at all. I got mega confused and when these were tied into the plot, especially at the end, it just added a whole lot of WTF. Like wait this was happening and it had such an effect but it was never actually talked about? I CAN’T EVEN.
This was made all the worse by poor world-building and terribad writing. It’s not a fantasy world. It’s like Mead just took early colonised USA and changed the names. Osfrid is very reminiscent of England, the Icori are basically the Scottish and the New Colonies are California during the Gold Rush. But it didn’t feel historical because the language was so modern. Minus the tech, the slang and colloquialisms were very 21st century. It’s like taking late 19th century/early 20th century US, with English fashion/customs and dropping a bunch of 21st century teens in costumes into this setting. It doesn’t work. It really doesn’t. Then add on Adelaide’s first person POV which is written in a very detached manner and it’s like I’m being told everything rather than shown. ALL THE TELLING. She breaks down into tears for a lot of things but I don’t feel anything because she TELLS me she’s crying. Her feelings aren’t explained. Everything is seen almost from behind a glass wall. Worstttttt.
Welps I just wrote a 1,000 word review for a pointless book. Rip. Save yourself 400 pages and read something better.
Big Oof.... I'm not gonna say the books sucks, but damn it's not what I wanted or expected. I can't tell if it felt rushed or if it was too slow. There was an idea there though, a good idea, but the execution just wasn't there I guess? IDK. Just not a favorite. I am curious about Tamsin and Mira so I'll keep reading g the series, but....oof.
I had high hopes for this one. Especially after the disappointment of And I Darken. And especially after I was pleasantly entertained in the first half of the book.
But...
So let’s break it down.
What I Liked:
The Potential – I guess it’s really bad when you’re reading a book and constantly thinking how much better it would be if they did “insert better thing here” instead. Maybe I should have put this in the Dislike section, but honestly, thinking about all the ways this story could have been better was a lot more entertaining than the story itself.
What I Disliked:
Adelaide – Ok. This girl wants to avoid a loveless marriage. So she runs away to a company that specializes in what basically amounts to a ritzy mail order bride service, just so that she could potentially find herself in another…loveless marriage.
Yeah, I was constantly trying to wrap my head around that one. Ada’s not going to be winning any common sense awards here. And since she made such a boneheaded move at the very beginning of the book, it made it really difficult to ever warm up to her.
Cedric – Guys. This is the love interest. And he was about as interesting as a cotton ball. Here is a man who makes his living off of selling underprivileged women to the highest bidder. I realize it was their decision, but it was probably the best choice out of a dozen other abysmal ones for survival.
At any rate, men are making a profit off of selling women.
And this guy? This is the guy you fall in love with? Ok, ok. He's not all bad. He does want to escape the life he’s in. And he wants to move to a community where he can freely follow the religion he is persecuted for. But he also wants to sell a replica of a valuable painting to some poor sop who thinks it’s the real deal, just so he can take the money and buy his stake with it. So, not the most ethical guy. I’m fine with character’s not being completely ethical. But they should also realize it. And on top of that, they also need to be interesting. And poor Cedric, was not.
Chemistry – As in, there was none. Cedric and Ada had as much chemistry as said cotton ball floating in a bowl of applejuice. The romance wasn't there for me. And yet, about three quarters of the way through, this turned into a paperback romance novel, resplendent with a villain you can practically visualize twirling his moustache.
Fantasy – As in, this was not. It wasn’t. Don’t bill something as fantasy when you've basically taken all your world building elements from historical fiction and just slapped a different name on it. Everything in this book was taken from real history, only the names of continents, religions, and peoples were changed. Osfrid is England. Adoria is America. Just say they are. The indigenous tribes of Adoria are Native Americans, although they were made to look and sound like ancient vikings or Scots or something of the like. Sirminicans are Middle Eastern. There are religions mirroring Paganism and Christianity. I wondered why there wasn’t a map at the beginning of book, then after a while I realized, it was because it would just be a map of the Northern Hemisphere.
Western – As in, what this book turned into halfway through. Seriously. Thar's gold in them thar hills.
Mira and Tamsin – Ada’s cardboard cutout best friends. The Glittering Court is going to be a trilogy, from my understanding, and each subsequent book will center on one of these girls. I’m guessing that is why so little is learned about them in book one, other than the fact that both of them are, like, super secretive. But I didn’t get enough complexities about either of them in book one to spur me on to read more about them in books two and three.
I’m stopping here. Anything else will just feel like nitpicking. But this is the second book I’ve read by Richelle Mead this year (or ever) and I’m thinking it may be my last.
But...
So let’s break it down.
What I Liked:
The Potential – I guess it’s really bad when you’re reading a book and constantly thinking how much better it would be if they did “insert better thing here” instead. Maybe I should have put this in the Dislike section, but honestly, thinking about all the ways this story could have been better was a lot more entertaining than the story itself.
What I Disliked:
Adelaide – Ok. This girl wants to avoid a loveless marriage. So she runs away to a company that specializes in what basically amounts to a ritzy mail order bride service, just so that she could potentially find herself in another…loveless marriage.
Yeah, I was constantly trying to wrap my head around that one. Ada’s not going to be winning any common sense awards here. And since she made such a boneheaded move at the very beginning of the book, it made it really difficult to ever warm up to her.
Cedric – Guys. This is the love interest. And he was about as interesting as a cotton ball. Here is a man who makes his living off of selling underprivileged women to the highest bidder. I realize it was their decision, but it was probably the best choice out of a dozen other abysmal ones for survival.
At any rate, men are making a profit off of selling women.
And this guy? This is the guy you fall in love with? Ok, ok. He's not all bad. He does want to escape the life he’s in. And he wants to move to a community where he can freely follow the religion he is persecuted for. But he also wants to sell a replica of a valuable painting to some poor sop who thinks it’s the real deal, just so he can take the money and buy his stake with it. So, not the most ethical guy. I’m fine with character’s not being completely ethical. But they should also realize it. And on top of that, they also need to be interesting. And poor Cedric, was not.
Chemistry – As in, there was none. Cedric and Ada had as much chemistry as said cotton ball floating in a bowl of applejuice. The romance wasn't there for me. And yet, about three quarters of the way through, this turned into a paperback romance novel, resplendent with a villain you can practically visualize twirling his moustache.
Fantasy – As in, this was not. It wasn’t. Don’t bill something as fantasy when you've basically taken all your world building elements from historical fiction and just slapped a different name on it. Everything in this book was taken from real history, only the names of continents, religions, and peoples were changed. Osfrid is England. Adoria is America. Just say they are. The indigenous tribes of Adoria are Native Americans, although they were made to look and sound like ancient vikings or Scots or something of the like. Sirminicans are Middle Eastern. There are religions mirroring Paganism and Christianity. I wondered why there wasn’t a map at the beginning of book, then after a while I realized, it was because it would just be a map of the Northern Hemisphere.
Western – As in, what this book turned into halfway through. Seriously. Thar's gold in them thar hills.
Mira and Tamsin – Ada’s cardboard cutout best friends. The Glittering Court is going to be a trilogy, from my understanding, and each subsequent book will center on one of these girls. I’m guessing that is why so little is learned about them in book one, other than the fact that both of them are, like, super secretive. But I didn’t get enough complexities about either of them in book one to spur me on to read more about them in books two and three.
I’m stopping here. Anything else will just feel like nitpicking. But this is the second book I’ve read by Richelle Mead this year (or ever) and I’m thinking it may be my last.
I liked the main character I didn’t like who she was set up with. OHH CEDRIC come on I just didn’t like him nor did I fall for him. I liked the lawyer a lot but that was it. Good read but I wasn’t rooting for the couple at all.
I wasn't blown away with this book but I think I will read the other two eventually to see if everyone will get their happily ever after, which I'm sure they will.