Dark and Mesmerizing: Kait Reviews Glitter by Aprilynne Pike

Posted November 21, 2016 by Kait in Futuristic, Reviews, Science Fiction, YA / 0 Comments

Dark and Mesmerizing: Kait Reviews Glitter by Aprilynne Pike

Glitter by Aprilynne Pike
Published by Penguin Random House, Random House Books for Young Readers on October 25th, 2016
Genres: Science Fiction, Futuristic, YA
Pages: 384
Format: Kindle, eARC
Source: NetGalley
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Reading Challenges: 2016 Goodreads Reading Challenge

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Aprilynne Pike comes a truly original new novel—Breaking Bad meets Marie Antoinette in a near-future world where the residents of Versailles live like it’s the eighteenth century and an almost-queen turns to drug dealing to save her own life. Outside the palace of Versailles, it’s modern day. Inside, the people dress, eat, and act like it’s the eighteenth century—with the added bonus of technology to make court life lavish, privileged, and frivolous. The palace has every indulgence, but for one pretty young thing, it’s about to become a very beautiful prison. When Danica witnesses an act of murder by the young king, her mother makes a cruel power play . . . blackmailing the king into making Dani his queen. When she turns eighteen, Dani will marry the most ruthless and dangerous man of the court. She has six months to escape her terrifying destiny. Six months to raise enough money to disappear into the real world beyond the palace gates. Her ticket out? Glitter. A drug so powerful that a tiny pinch mixed into a pot of rouge or lip gloss can make the wearer hopelessly addicted. Addicted to a drug Dani can sell for more money than she ever dreamed. But in Versailles, secrets are impossible to keep. And the most dangerous secret—falling for a drug dealer outside the palace walls—is one risk she has to take.

Rating: 4.5 stars

The Good

The Anti-Heroine: Danica, the main character, isn’t perfect. She doesn’t pretend to be perfect (well, except when she literally has to pretend) and that is refreshing. Her actions have consequences, and they aren’t always good. Everything that she goes through leads her through a major character arc, but instead of the everywoman to hero arc, it’s more like what you would expect to see in a fairy tale prequel, like Heartless or Queen of Hearts.

The Plot: How far would you go to save yourself? That’s the basic question that this book asks, and the answer (for Danica) is… pretty far. Somewhere on tumblr (I tried looking, but I just ended up falling down the rabbit hole), there’s a post about a video game that goes in reverse. You start in the top of the tower as the princess in distress, and gradually you fight your way down the tower, until you get to the bottom and you have to beat one last opponent. And once you’ve won, you realize that you just killed the knight in shining armor who was coming to save you. The entirety of Glitter is kind of spent in that ‘oh shit what now’ moment that follows the you killed your savior, what do you do now kind of realization. And honestly? I loved it. It’s not light. It’s not easy. It’s dark and difficult and mesmerizing.

The Bad

The Relationships: Both the friendships and the romantic relationships felt underdeveloped to me. I don’t know how to explain more without giving spoilers, so I’ll just leave it at that.

The Ending: It felt rushed. Truthfully, I forgot that it wasn’t going to be a stand alone, so I was quite surprised when I got to the ending and… it didn’t wrap up. So I’m really looking forward to the next book so that I can learn what happens to these characters.