Book Review: The Glass Spare by Lauren DeStefano

 

The Glass Spare

by Lauren DeStefano

Source: The November "Castles. Courts and Kingdoms" box from OwlCrate

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Magic

Plot:

Wilhelmina "Wil" Heidle is a princess, the apple of her mother's eye, and one of her father's best-kept secret weapons as a potential spy. Wil is the youngest of four, the beloved daughter after three sons, a spare who will never see the throne. Wil is close to two of her brothers: Owen (the heir), and Gerdie (the second youngest, and alchemist). Baron (second oldest, the first spare) is a despicable character, only loved by his mother, and even she fears him.

 

The story of Wil's birth is quite special. By all accounts she appeared to be cursed and should not have lived, but did. She looks nothing like the rest of her family, which makes her excellent spy material. She has a knack for fighting and undercover work (she often escapes the palace to find special ingredients for Gerdie's alchemy). Wil wants nothing more than to travel the world, and if being her father's spy (and thereby earning his approval) is the only way to do it, so be it.

 

But soon everything changes. Wil's life is threatened, and in her fight for her life, something inside her awakens. She suddenly has the ability to turn living things to "stone" when she is upset. Actually, gemstones. Emeralds, diamonds, rubies, etc.

 

After a series of unfortunate events, Wil's family now believes that she is dead, and she is on the run, trying to find a way to cure the curse, and save her kingdom.

Review:

I found this book to have a bit of a slow start. I mean, I was interested from the beginning, because, what a great premise!, but it wasn't quite able to hold my attention. This may have been due  to my own mindset at the time, as I was trying to finish the book in December as part of the Facebook group Life and Lit's Bingo reading challenge, which I guess was a bit too much stress. I decided to set it aside for a couple of weeks, and when I came back to it, things seemed to be a bit more interesting, and by the halfway point I was hooked.

I seem to have a real problem with fantasy world-building. It doesn't seem to matter what the world is, if it isn't the here and now, I tend to have a hard time picturing it. I found the world in this book to be rather confusing. On the one hand, it sounded medieval to me, King Arthur-esque. However, upon further research, I suppose it's meant to be more like King Midas' time period, which would be Ancient Greece (I honestly didn't remember this from history?). But the presence of modern technology (electricity, elevators...) really threw me off.

 

Aside from that, I really enjoyed the adventure, and the sort-of romance. I really like this idea of a cursed princess, I love the "Midas touch" aspect, and I appreciated that it wasn't all about the romance. I was really frustrated with the ending because it's what I consider a bit of a cliffhanger; Wil still hasn't found the cure for her curse, she has to go back to her kingdom to save someone's life, something tragic may have happened back in her kingdom but we don't know for sure, and we don't know what kind of deal she made with the Marveler, or what will be expected of her in the future after she returns... *sigh* I guess I'll just have to wait for the sequel!

Overall, I found it an interesting read, and I think I would recommend it to someone who likes fantasy. :)

 

 

My Goodreads rating:

 

It's Monday! What Are YOU Reading? #8

Good Monday afternoon! Let me tell you, I was not this chipper this morning. I didn't sleep very much last night, my brain was running on high speed, so I was groggy and grumpy this morning, and it was something like -23*C. Yuck. Anyway... feeling a little less murderous this afternoon...

 

I have been working on some new book reviews, but they're not quite ready yet, but I thought I should post something for you guys... You know, all two of you, waiting with bated breath... *insert massive eye roll*

 

So, what am I reading this week? Well that's kind of a long story, that starts before Christmas... If you want the long-story-short version, please skip over the blue text...

 

Right, so I like to try to give my nephews each a book and something else for Christmas/birthdays. I've been gifting my younger nephew the Harry Potter series, so he was taken care of for Christmas, but I needed to find something for my older nephew, plus his birthday is January 1st, so I actually had to find two books for him.

 

I did a little consulting on the Facebook groups, and got lots of great ideas! The most suggested, and the one I thought would be the best-received was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, especially with the movie coming out in March! So I ordered that one, and then I couldn't decide between two other suggestions. One was the Alfred Kropp series, the other was the Alex Rider series. They both looked pretty interesting, but I thought I had settled on Alex Rider because it seemed a little more his style (these are spy books with a lot of extreme sports, which he loves). As it turns out, I accidentally ordered both books, The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp (Alfred Kropp #1) and Stormbreaker (Alex Rider #1).

 

I kept hearing good things about Ready Player One, and I really wanted to read it myself, so I considered keeping it, (I mean, I really struggled with this...), and just giving him the other two, since I had them. But I knew he would like Ready Player One, and I had bought it for him, so what to do? Well I knew that I wasn't interested in reading Alex Rider myself, and that it would be more his thing, so I gave him that book for Christmas, leaving myself a few days to decide what to do with the others.

 

What I ended up deciding was just to give him Ready Player One, but start reading it myself. I started reading it, mistakenly thinking I would have enough time to read the whole thing before his party on the 1st, but I only got about halfway through before the party rolled around and I had to give it away! So I put my name in right away for an interlibrary loan copy, thinking I would probably get it this past week. No dice. I only got the call last Friday that it was delivered, but the library is closed on Monday, so I have to wait until tomorrow! Then I will finally be able to finish Ready Player One!

 

So, long-story-short, I am "currently reading" Ready Player One, even though it has not been in my possession for two weeks, and I will only be able to resume reading it tomorrow. In the meantime, I am also reading Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. I won't have time to finish it before I get my hands back on Ready Player One, but I just might possibly finish both of them this week - we'll have to see! :)

What are you guys reading this week? Have you read Ready Player One yet? I was loving it, what I've read so far, and really can't wait to finish it, and then for the movie to come out in a couple months!!