Book One of the Glitch Series
Rating: Four out of 4 Stars
I adored this book. And the more I step away from it and let it process, the more I find myself thinking about it. Although originally I gave it three stars, any book that keeps me thinking about it days after I have finished it gets bumped up to the next level.
Let me preface this review by saying that I do understand the negative comments about this book. And having read the reviews before I read the story I was almost going to pass this book by. But I am sooo glad I didn’t. Here are my two issues:
1.) Glitch is obviously a debut author’s book and not a seasoned writer’s work. We can see evidence of a newbies writing throughout the story. The most obvious places to me was when Anastasiu described to character movements. She wouldn’t fully describe a scene and so when she would have a character do some action, you where thrown out of the story. For example, Zoe and Adrien would climb onto the bed but she wouldn’t say they laid down or sat up so you couldn’t fully create the picture in your mind. But then she would say “Zoe leaned forward and put her hands on her knees”. And you would have to now rework the picture of the scene in your head to put Zoe in a position that would allow her to do that action. While the overall story was thought out, there are general techniques that Anastasiu will need to work on in the next book.
2.) Anastasiu took on a huge task writing an character that doesn’t have emotions. After all, books are based on a characters emotions! The problem was that you need descriptive words you get from having emotions to create a fluid and beautiful story. So sometimes Zoe would describe pictures or people using words like “warmth” and “compassion” when she really shouldn’t have any understanding of warmth or compassion if she doesn’t understand emotions right? Right.
So those two glaring negatives aside, I did enjoy this book and look forward to Book Numero Dos. The issues of the book were very technical and show the authors youth in writing. But I did think the way she wrote Zoe’s relationship with Max and Adrien was well done. Anastasiu definitely captured how confusing emotions are and how much we feel effects how we act. I enjoyed being apart of Zoe’s journey of emotional discovery, it was realistic. I thoroughly enjoyed the dynamics between Max and Zoe. I realize this relationship has been criticized immensely, but in my opinion it was SO TRUE! And bravo for not creating a weak character who DOES have a morsel self respect. I liked how we finally have a female character who does have morals, even if she doesn’t understand where they come from.
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