Hey Ho Bookaholics!
This is a Tuesday post, and like I confessed in my previous post ‘Secret Life of A Book Blogger Tag’, I will post sometimes a day after the sceduled Saturday and Monday. I’m deliberately posting this today because I wanted to leave a day gap between the last post and this one.
Big and sweeping, spanning rom the refined palaces of Osfrid to the gold dust and untamed forests of Adoria, The Glittering Court tells the story of Adelaide, an Osfridian countess who oses as her servant to escape an arranged marriage and start a new life in Adoria, the New World. But to do that, she must join the Glittering Court.
Both a school and a business venture, the Glittering Court is designed to transform impoverished girls into upper-class ladies who appear destined for powerful and wealthy marriages in the New World. Adelaide naturally excels in her training, and even makes a few friends: the fiery former laundress Tamsin and the beautiful Sirminican refugee Mira. She manages to keep her true identity hidden from all but one: the intriguing Cedric Thorn, son of the wealthy proprietor of the Glittering Court.
When Adelaide discovers that Cedric is hiding a dangerous secret of his own, together they hatch a scheme to make the best of Adelaide’s deception. Complications soon arise—first as they cross the treacherous seas from Osfrid to Adoria, and then when Adelaide catches the attention of a powerful governor.
But no complication will prove quite as daunting as the potent attraction simmering between Adelaide and Cedric. An attraction that, if acted on, would scandalize the Glittering Court and make them both outcasts in wild, vastly uncharted lands…
Review
Let me start by saying that this isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read (I’m still yet to find that book); and it is by far from the best book I’ve ever read, which is Illuminae.
This is not a large book, so it would usually be a relatively quick and easy read if it wasn’t for the really unengaging storyline. There was no direction to this story, and by the middle of the book, I felt like I was just reading it for the sake of finishing it. I was not engaged at all in the storyline or the romance. I picked up this novel because I’d heard amazing reviews for Richelle Mead’s other series The Vampire Academy (which I haven’t read but I would still like to) and Bloodlines, but this book greatly disappointed me.
I felt that throughout this book there was no anticipation in the story and I didn’t know what to look forward to or what to expect. I felt like I was just reading it for the sake of reading and not to find the answer to a problem, solve a puzzle or find a deeper meaning within.
I wasn’t so much slow as it was boring and repetitive. There was no excitement, and even the revelation of Cedric being a heretic wasn’t even very surprising, it was a rather dull discovery, much like I am reading a codex of the practices and culture of a society of rich people set in a different country, but as a fiction discourse.
Despite all of the negative reviews, I feel like I would still at least like to try reading the second book in the series, considering the protagonist is one of the other girls at The Glittering Court who I liked much more than the proagonist in this book.
Rating
I gave this book a ★★☆☆☆ (2/5 stars) and I know this is a really harsh rating, considering Richelle Mead is a well respected author for her Vampire Academy and Bloodlines books. I have never given a book a two-out-of-five star rating and for my first Richelle Mead book I’m quite dissapointed. I can’t believe I disliked a book so much as to have to give it a two-star rating but this book annoyed me in all the worst ways and I feel it deserved this rating.
I do not want to discourage you from reading this book, so if you love Richelle Mead’s works and want to read this, go ahead and take this review as a personal opinion.
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Thank You so much for reading and I hope to see you all back here again Saturday 🙂
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© Jasper+Spice 2016. All Rights Reserved. Please do not use without permission. This review was not sponsored, all opinions (and photo) are my own and were featured on my Instagram @thebookishbree, book cover is from Goodreads (jasperandspice).
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