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A review by lanieq
The Glass Demon by Helen Grant
2.0
The premise was interesting, and the suspense and pace were good enough to keep me reading, but in the end I was left disappointed. The conclusion was sort of anticlimactic in its normality, and none of the characters seemed to have any redeeming characteristics, other than perhaps Polly and Michel. But then again, their only positive traits tended to be their selflessness to the point of being doormats. I couldn't figure out why Michel loved Lin, unless it was just based on physical attraction and her being foreign. I also couldn't understand how Lin went from using Michel and not caring about him, to suddenly deciding she loved him. There was no epiphany, other than her suddenly realizing he was good looking after being humiliated by the priest she has a crush on, nor any sort of growth in her feelings for him.
Relationships between Lin's family members were also confusing. I was honestly shocked to discover near the end that Tuesday was her real mother, and Polly was actually her older sister, not her younger sister. There was something about the dynamics between them and how each of them acted that gave me the impression that Lin was older, and I don't recall anything in the text giving us their ages.
Because of the way Tuesday relates to the girls differently than she does to her infant son, I was under the impression for most of the book that Polly and Lin's birth mother had died when they were little, and Tuesday was her father's second wife, and Reuben was Tuesday and their father's son.
Lin tells us early on that she wants to be a scientist and be the only one in her family not interested in the arts. But as far as I can tell, only their father is interested in the arts, as a historian. Tuesday doesn't seem interested in much of anything other than fashion mags, Polly only seems interested in taking care of the baby, and there's no real indication that Lin is actually interested in science. Her whole "I'm going to be a scientist" routine only seems to come up when she's trying to rationalize her ill-fated crush on the handsome priest at her school. The fact that Lin can spontaneously draw the elaborate stained glass windows from memory in a matter of minutes was really hard to believe, particularly since Lin doesn't seem to spend any time during the rest of the book drawing or displaying any artistic talent at all, and she only has a few brief encounters with the windows in real life.
And for all of her apparent sympathy for Polly doing everything while Tuesday does nothing, Lin herself doesn't seem to actually pitch in to help out. Aside from going to school, and the few trips to the woods, I can't really figure out what Lin herself is spending her time on, and why she couldn't help her poor sister out.
I also think considering how much misinformation is given about Michel's brother, it would've been more effective to have Lin actually meet him, rather than coming to the realization that he was harmless via Michel's words and her own analysis of an event she didn't actually witness (when Michel's father comes over to the castle to threaten Lin's family, and Jorg comes along).
All in all, it's an interesting premise, the suspense and tension are well done, but it was hard to care about what happened to any of the characters when I didn't really like any of them (other than perhaps Michel and Polly, the only two I found sympathetic), and the big reveal was sort of a let down.
Relationships between Lin's family members were also confusing. I was honestly shocked to discover near the end that Tuesday was her real mother, and Polly was actually her older sister, not her younger sister. There was something about the dynamics between them and how each of them acted that gave me the impression that Lin was older, and I don't recall anything in the text giving us their ages.
Because of the way Tuesday relates to the girls differently than she does to her infant son, I was under the impression for most of the book that Polly and Lin's birth mother had died when they were little, and Tuesday was her father's second wife, and Reuben was Tuesday and their father's son.
Lin tells us early on that she wants to be a scientist and be the only one in her family not interested in the arts. But as far as I can tell, only their father is interested in the arts, as a historian. Tuesday doesn't seem interested in much of anything other than fashion mags, Polly only seems interested in taking care of the baby, and there's no real indication that Lin is actually interested in science. Her whole "I'm going to be a scientist" routine only seems to come up when she's trying to rationalize her ill-fated crush on the handsome priest at her school. The fact that Lin can spontaneously draw the elaborate stained glass windows from memory in a matter of minutes was really hard to believe, particularly since Lin doesn't seem to spend any time during the rest of the book drawing or displaying any artistic talent at all, and she only has a few brief encounters with the windows in real life.
And for all of her apparent sympathy for Polly doing everything while Tuesday does nothing, Lin herself doesn't seem to actually pitch in to help out. Aside from going to school, and the few trips to the woods, I can't really figure out what Lin herself is spending her time on, and why she couldn't help her poor sister out.
I also think considering how much misinformation is given about Michel's brother, it would've been more effective to have Lin actually meet him, rather than coming to the realization that he was harmless via Michel's words and her own analysis of an event she didn't actually witness (when Michel's father comes over to the castle to threaten Lin's family, and Jorg comes along).
All in all, it's an interesting premise, the suspense and tension are well done, but it was hard to care about what happened to any of the characters when I didn't really like any of them (other than perhaps Michel and Polly, the only two I found sympathetic), and the big reveal was sort of a let down.