A review by nostrabora
The Glass Sentence by S.E. Grove

1.0

Illogical, hard to follow plot. At many points my eyes were just going over the words not being able to absorb them, or even build a mental image of what was happening, except for brief flashes. I want to run through an imaginary world that feels as easy as breathing, not stumble through it on stilted fumbling steps because I can't make out what kind of terrain Im even walking on. Nothing in this book made any sense. And it's such a shame because the premise sounded so interesting! I love cartography and travel and historical fiction. My favorite things in fact! And adding the element of different parts of the world being trapped in different times sounded like a new and fascinating concept. I hoped we would get to travel to those new times in this book. Instead we were stuck in pretty much the same age throughout the whole story. Also thrown in were way more weird science fiction abilities/powers/body modifications?/monsters/magic/etc. than I had anticipated. It was so utterly random. Grass hair? Thorn skin?? Huh??? And no explanations of anything. Ever. I was so. confused. the entire. book. And I couldn't even exert the mental energy to try and invent or reason my way through the nonsense of the 'world building', because you are constantly bombarded with new concepts and ideas that just appear out of thin air without any explanation which you're just meant to roll with. In some ways, this book was basic and predictable, in others unbelievably confusing and extremely hard to follow. I'd also like to echo what some other reviewers have said - what audience is this book intended for??? The MC is 13 years old, but this book seems rather advanced in concept and certain elements that are more adult like torture/body mutilation/depression for readers of similar age. Wanted to like this book so much, but wow it really fell short of the mark.