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A review by dragoneyes451
A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz
3.0
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
First and foremost, thank you to Chronicle Books for this ARC. The synopsis had interested me previously, so when I saw it on display at BEA, I started chatting with some of the publishing staff. After a few minutes trying to hash out the book together (It's about fairies! And gnomes! And the gnomes eat the fairies and there's a war! But then they fall in love?!), they pulled out a galley for me and asked me to figure it out for myself and report back!
I'm still not sure how to describe A History of Glitter and Blood. It was... Weird. Odd. Bizarre. Dark. Interesting. Strange. Different. THERE'S the word I want, different.
The synopsis does a LOUSY job of summing up this book. A History of Glitter and Blood really is about fairies and gnomes (and tight-walkers), and there really is a war. But the war is more of a supporting subplot and not the main storyline, if that makes sense. The true story here is really about the characters and their interactions and relationships. This book is pretty dark, and involves some elements I wasn't expecting, like prostitution and polygamy. FYI, the storyline does revolve around sexual themes, but again, isn't the main plotline, if that makes any sense at all (probably not, because this book is crazy). The world building is pretty weak, but that's because, like I said, the point of the story is the characters and their relationships, not what's happening around them.
I won't lie, I struggled quite a bit with the way A History of Glitter and Blood is written. It's a total jarring mess at times, to put it frankly. There were a couple of times in the beginning when I seriously considered putting the book down because it was SO DISJOINTED, but then something would happen that would make me want to read just a bit more and figure out where it was headed. 'Cause uh, it's all real confusing at first, and the narrator is ENTIRELY UNRELIABLE. But if you stick with it, you learn why the writing feels so crazy, and then it actually all starts to make sense in a bizarre way. At one point I thought to myself, "Huh, the author was kind of brilliant with how she wrote this book!"
By the end, I was FEELING SO MUCH for the characters, and I think that was the point. I just wanted them to find their happy ending!!! I thought the court scene was genius, and by that time I was doing in-my-head cheering for the characters.
Overall, this definitely ranks up there for oddest/strangest/most different books I've read in a while. It's not going to be popular with a lot of people. You have to be looking for something totally different and be willing to push through the crazy writing and stick with the book. I think most people who DNF this book will do so because they didn't stick with it long enough to get what the author was trying to do. If you think you're wanting something different and don't mind hanging in there, then you might enjoy this one in the end.
This review was originally posted on Books Are My Thing
First and foremost, thank you to Chronicle Books for this ARC. The synopsis had interested me previously, so when I saw it on display at BEA, I started chatting with some of the publishing staff. After a few minutes trying to hash out the book together (It's about fairies! And gnomes! And the gnomes eat the fairies and there's a war! But then they fall in love?!), they pulled out a galley for me and asked me to figure it out for myself and report back!
I'm still not sure how to describe A History of Glitter and Blood. It was... Weird. Odd. Bizarre. Dark. Interesting. Strange. Different. THERE'S the word I want, different.
The synopsis does a LOUSY job of summing up this book. A History of Glitter and Blood really is about fairies and gnomes (and tight-walkers), and there really is a war. But the war is more of a supporting subplot and not the main storyline, if that makes sense. The true story here is really about the characters and their interactions and relationships. This book is pretty dark, and involves some elements I wasn't expecting, like prostitution and polygamy. FYI, the storyline does revolve around sexual themes, but again, isn't the main plotline, if that makes any sense at all (probably not, because this book is crazy). The world building is pretty weak, but that's because, like I said, the point of the story is the characters and their relationships, not what's happening around them.
I won't lie, I struggled quite a bit with the way A History of Glitter and Blood is written. It's a total jarring mess at times, to put it frankly. There were a couple of times in the beginning when I seriously considered putting the book down because it was SO DISJOINTED, but then something would happen that would make me want to read just a bit more and figure out where it was headed. 'Cause uh, it's all real confusing at first, and the narrator is ENTIRELY UNRELIABLE. But if you stick with it, you learn why the writing feels so crazy, and then it actually all starts to make sense in a bizarre way. At one point I thought to myself, "Huh, the author was kind of brilliant with how she wrote this book!"
By the end, I was FEELING SO MUCH for the characters, and I think that was the point. I just wanted them to find their happy ending!!! I thought the court scene was genius, and by that time I was doing in-my-head cheering for the characters.
Overall, this definitely ranks up there for oddest/strangest/most different books I've read in a while. It's not going to be popular with a lot of people. You have to be looking for something totally different and be willing to push through the crazy writing and stick with the book. I think most people who DNF this book will do so because they didn't stick with it long enough to get what the author was trying to do. If you think you're wanting something different and don't mind hanging in there, then you might enjoy this one in the end.
This review was originally posted on Books Are My Thing