Glow (Sky Chasers, #1)

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

16 years ago, Waverly and Kieran were the first children born in space. Now a perfect couple, they are the pride and joy of the whole spaceship.

They represent the future.

The ship is their entire world.

They have never seen a stranger before.

Old Earth is crumbling, and the crew is hoping to reach (and colonise) New Earth within fifty years. Along with their allies on the second spaceship - who set off a year before them and whom they have never met.

One day, Kieran proposes to Waverly. That same morning, the 'allies' attack - and Kieran and Waverly are separated in the cruellest way possible. Will they ever see each other again?

• ISBN10: 0330535587
• ISBN13: 9780330535588
• Publish Date: 7 October 2011 (first published 13 September 2011)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 10 February 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Macmillan Children's Books
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

I picked up Glow from the library because of its gorgeous space cover. I'm obsessed with space stuff and the cover was saying, "Zara, you need to read me."

The first thing that I need to do is discuss how the blurb of my book copy is misleading. After reading the blurb, I was expecting a book full of amazing star crossed space romance, instead, I got an extremely dark and dreadful space world...

I loved that this book didn't focus on the romance. Firstly, I wasn't invested in Kieran's and Waverly's (the main characters) relationship. Their relationship has already been going for 10 months by the time Glow has started. This means that I was unable to see the way in which their relationship started or how it grew. Secondly, there's a love triangle that occurs between Kieran, Waverly and Seth. The romance wasn't the main aspect of the novel. It was a sideline plot that was only focused on maybe once or twice in the novel. This is why I wasn't annoyed or irritated by any romance aspect.

The space aspect was one of my favourite parts of the novel. Ryan did some serious research about all her "space stuff." The world building in this novel was also well written, credible, easy to understand and believable.

The characters in Glow are also well-written. Each of the characters in the novel go through some terrible things that shape their lives either for the better, but mostly for the worst. This novel is also realistic. There is no "happily ever after." Nothing goes the way the characters want them to go and many sickening situations or consequences occur because of it.

Even although Glow was a gripping piece of writing with tons of action moments, it failed to knock my socks off my feet.

[Chelsea]

Quick thoughts:
1. Way too much religion in here for me. I hate reading about it.
2. I didn't like Kieran. He annoyed me. Also Seth was pretty stupid.
3. I liked following the girls story a lot more. The boys were too typical.
4. The idea of this book was good. It just didn't play out very well.
5. If I skipped reading about the boys this would be a really good book.

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Sigh.

I was so excited for this book! I had such high hopes. I was disappointed when I finished reading it. I had no idea how dark this book was going to be. The summary doesn’t give that away for sure. That’s probably why I didn’t really like it and have rated it so low, it’s my personal opinion on the enjoyment factor. Does that make my rating biased?

Here’s why I personally did not enjoy this book.

My main problem was that the characters just weren’t likeable. The decisions they made made me angry, they were driven on by one sided ideas and all I could think was ‘How can they not see the other side of the argument? How can they not see the bigger picture?’. Perhaps this is because they’re all so young. I don’t know but I really did not take a liking to any one character and had no hope for what direction the story would go. Every character was narrow minded in my opinion and I couldn’t connect to any one of them.

Although you could see how they came to their decisions and every character thought they were doing the right thing at the time. Still, it wasn’t that enjoyable to read if you don’t like dark stories like me. The idea from the summary sounded really interesting and fun, the actual story just wasn’t anything that I expected. So I guess I was shocked when I finished reading this book.

In short, the ending of this story made me extremely angry that I found it hard to read the last chapter. I actually just didn’t care what happened because I didn’t care about anyone in the story. I know characters have flaws but the flaws these characters had were so big that they over shadowed any good quality that the character had, in my opinion.

I had no idea which team to root for, I had no idea which team of people would be better to start a new life on the new world. I guess that was because I couldn’t decide who I dis-liked more.

There were a lot of twists and turns in this story, you thought you knew where it was going but then you would be completely surprised. I found myself being surprised quite a few times. I also found myself clamping my hand over my mouth with the sheer disgust in what was going on all the while wondering how humans could treat one another like that. But I guess, when in desperation the need for survival takes over. Still, not very pretty. Still again, it would most likely happen this way in reality if this situation ever arose.

So all in all I was disappointed just because my expectations had been on a different scale that probably runs adjacent to this one. Once again I had painted a picture in my mind that was nothing like the actual painting this book told.

Besides all of that the writing was good writing and I didn’t find myself getting bored, only annoyed. There are pretty good qualities to this book it’s just the amount of things I didn’t like about it outweigh the good. To be honest, I will most likely read the next books in the series. That’s because I want to see what happens, even if I disagreed with this book and could barely read the last chapter.

I would recommend this book to people that enjoy dark stories! You will definitely love this book.

Miss J
x

[inlibrisveritas]

In compliance with FTC guidelines, I received this book from Macmillan Audio in exchange for an unbiased review.

Glow is my first step into the mix of Young Adult fiction and space, and I can tell it's a pretty good start. I listened to this so my exprience is a bit different than if I had read it, I think in this case having the audio version actually made me enjoy it more then I normally would have. It's far more "interactive" and some parts of the story really benefited from having that tone of voice included. I enjoyed having two different readers for Kieran and Waverly, and I felt it gave it some more depth to the characters. Iyana Kadushin does a really fantastic job with the reading and creating the voices for the other character. I will say that a downside to this is that the voices that they do for the same characters don't match up, so it can feel slightly odd at times.

The story in itself was really interesting and for the most part I enjoyed it. I liked the idea of a ravaged Earth and humans setting out for a new home light-years away, so that was my main reason for my curiosity in this. I can't say I was disappointed there really but it is different then I had thought it was going to be. While this is a novel about survival and self preservation, you find out while reading that it's also about preserving who you are and what you believe. That being said this book does have religious moments and that makes me wary of it because I'm not particularity fond of that element in my books.I think what made it different was the fact that it wasn't preachy in the sense that you feel like it's trying to convert you. It felt to me more like a philosophical plot device. It delves into the positives and negatives of humans practicing religion, so it actually kind of gained points from me for that. The quotes at the beginning of each section are really genius as they give you the mindset of the upcoming events. Ryan also does a great job as putting in tons of great moments where everything kicks into high gear and pulls you in, and she even adds plenty of twists to the story that keep you kind of at a loss for what's going to happen. The sheer human nature of the plot keeps it predictable in the sense that you can understand why the people are doing what they are doing, but it also keeps it so that it stays in a shade of grey when it comes to morality. There are moments in this where I actually felt sick at what other humans could do in the name of survival and despite having to go take medicine to calm my stomach I actually really enjoyed having a book evoke that kind of reaction.

The main characters were different for me. Where I really enjoyed Waverly and hearing about her side of the predicament, I was a tad indifferent to Kieran and his. This probably had to do with both me being female and me being able to relate Waverly as far as religious outlook. I could connect to her without a problem. Kieran was just odd to me, and as a person I don't think I liked him all that much. Seth is another character that I didn't like, but I understood him more than Kieran. Personally I don't want Waverly with either of them as they both seem like they could do more harm then good.

It may not be a perfect read for me but I did enjoy it enjoy to look forward to the next book, Sparks. Especially with the ending being a cliffhanger of sorts. It's the perfect pausing place for the story but it's also going to drive me crazy till I find out what's going to happen to the ships and the people aboard them.

[ladygrey]

There are some books that you don't enjoy that much as your reading them, maybe the heroine is annoying or dense, maybe the plot is too slow or the dialogue to simplistic, but then it ends well; redeems itself in that moment of cute romance or self-reflection or transformation that is just enough for you to forgive the earlier faults and decide maybe you like the book after all. This was the antithesis to those books.

[b:Glow|10174795|Glow (Sky Chasers, #1)|Amy Kathleen Ryan|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312847982s/10174795.jpg|15073624] is a suspenseful, plot driven book. I didn't like the beginning because it opened horribly. And by beginning I mean the first 120 pages because it's a really fast read. It got better, opened itself up to some interesting turns. I was hoping it would go even further, redeeming the people it vilified and vice versa. But it didn't and I didn't entirely mind that it was that deep or innovative. It was fast, it was full of action, I was fully prepared to like it ok.

until it ended. I hated how very, very stupid Waverly was to believe Seth's lies so easily; to turn from Kieran for such a ridiculous reason. Because he wasn't Anne Mather. If [a:Amy Kathleen Ryan|504627|Amy Kathleen Ryan|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1307413912p2/504627.jpg] showed it anything it was the authenticity of Kieran's faith. The things he'd learned about himself about the other boys during the whole story, the value of his leadership. Maybe in 50 years he's corrupted if he loses sight of what he's gained in this story. But for Waverly to distrust him just because he was leading a service was stupid. She spent all this time trying to be a good leader herself, to help the girls and learn from the whole thing about distinguishing the good guy and the bad guy. And in the last 10 pages she shows that it's all been a farce because she really is that dumb.

So, exactly opposite of those books that redeem themselves in the end, this was an ok book that destroyed itself in the end. I won't bother to read the sequel.

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

Glow is an utterly amazing, truly epic ingenious, plot driven captivating story that will leave reader's engrossed until the very end. It's full of fantastic twists, turns, and heart-pounding adventure that never stops. The depths and layers, in which Kathleen Ryan tackles, is simply beyond astounding and will leave the reader feeling incredibly satisified when they've finished the last page.

Ryan has this truly genius way of putting the reader right into the story, along with the main protagonist, and begs the question of "what would you do?" in a situation like that. Could you be brave enough to survive the fight, let alone save everyone who was left, even when there was absolutely no turning back? It is a concept and story arc that is very well established, developed, and carried out in seemingly flawless effort. Waverly, is a wonderfully crafted and developed protragonist the reader is introduced to, who comes off as very likable and possesses much more heart, strength and bravery than your average teen heroine normally would.

Waverly is taken captive and introduced to what seems like a terrifying future, when the New Horizon boards and attacks the Empyrean. So many questions become visible and secrets are revelaed along the way. It is a scary and dangerous path and Waverly and the rest of the girls must find a way to rise up and overcome this struggle. Serious issues are dealt with in such a way that it leaves the reader feeling with the character's in the novel. Oppression, violence, sex, and free choice are among many of these serious matters that are not only discussed in Glow, but also acted upon quite frequently throughout the story as it develops and pulls the reader in more deeply than before.

The villians in this story are wonderful assets that bring so much depth and intrigue of their own. They are perfectly written, well developed, strong individuals who truly believe in the choices they are making for the greater good of their people that will lend to their survival. Anne Mather is a mystery of her own making, who is so incredibly hell-bent on the mission that she believes she must carry out, and isn't afraid of doing what she feels she must (such as resorting to blackmail and/or murder) in order to make it happen. She possesses such a strong flavored personality that it's almost scary in such a fantastically written and phoneomenal way. She is what every villian in a book should resemble, because she is not afraid to make the hard choices, and carry them on her shoulders even if she becomes the most hated or feared of them all.

The love triangle that's introuduced between Kieran, Waverly, and Seth is handled in such a delightful way, that it doesn't detract from the story at all and it actually makes quite a bit of sense. There is more to Seth, than just filling out the third point in the triangle. He is quite dark and mysterious, an enthralling villian of his own making and possibly one that readers could feel a bit of sympathy for. It is very enjoyable to read, because Ryan made sure that it new its place in this story, and blended it in quite well wherever needed so as not to interfere or take over the lead.

It is apparent that there is a clear definition of good vs evil showdown here. The question remains, who will prevail when the final installment gets here? Glow leaves the reader with a cliff-hanger to end all cliff-hangers, which will send them into a virtual tail-spin waiting for the next book to follow. It is a fantastic dystopian meets deep space read and fans of The Hunger Games trilogy or Across The Universe will find this book to be an truly captivating and engrossing read.

Oh Glow....and I was so looking forward to this book. :/ sad to say, this was not what I expected.


The Good:

The premise! this is what first drew me to this book! it sounded amazing! Girls taken away from their ship because another ship needs children? There are definitely a ton of possibilities as to where this book could go and this is what made me want this book so badly that I bought it the day it came out! And after reading Across the Universe and Inside Out I thought this would follow in its footsteps and turn out to be an amazing sci-fi. However, I was sadly disappointed.


The Bad:

Pretty much everything else.*sigh*

The world building...well there wasn't much of it! When it comes to sci-fi, or any world building for any genre really, I like to be able to picture it. All I know about this ship was that it was egg-shaped and that there were corridors. yeah, not much to go by now is it? Just a little more detail would have helped immensely!


The characters.....what characters? honestly, I felt NOTHING for them. This book should have been an emotional thrill ride! I mean, these girls are stolen from there ship!! I'd feel angry, sad, and defiant! Even though these characters may have "felt" that way, it wasn't portrayed very well. I couldn't.....connect with any of these characters. Instead of really being in the story, I felt very much outside of it. I felt that the author barely skimmed over the emotions, not really getting into the depth of them.


The religion....well I guess one good thing about this book is that she really surprised me with this aspect of the book! however, I'm not quite sure I like it. I guess i kinda like that she shows both sides of a religion however, it was pretty in your face. Instead of making it more implied, and letting the reader figure it out, it played a major role in the plot which for me, didn't really add anything to it. perhaps this was because she went a completely different direction that I was thinking? I feel that it was....unnecessary. I think there were other ways that she could have done this. Honestly, I have mixed feeling on this part and its up to the reader to decide.



The pacing: normally I comment on how the pacing was a little slow, well, not this time! it went by waaayyy to fast! it was bam, bam, BAM! everything just happened so fast and confused me! all of a sudden it's 5 months later! wait....WHAT?!?! How does that happen? I just feel like there were way to many gaps in this book. Had this book been much longer with many more details, I might've felt a little differently about it.



Overall, I didn't really care for this book. I didn't hate it (again, the premise was really interesting), but I certainly didn't like it. Will I read this next book? although this may surprise you, Yes. Simply because I am kinda interested to see where it goes. However, I will definitely be borrowing it from the library, not buying it. However, many people liked this book! so if this sounds interesting to you, then give it a try! We all have different taste, and who knows? you may end up loving this book!

[rakesandrogues]

A thrilling space adventure that is often compared to Beth Revis’s Across the Universe, GLOW is a thought-provoking science fiction novel that is a great addition to the young adult genre. I love science fiction and I’m really happy that it’s finally – albeit, slowly – gaining popularity in YA. I read a bit of mixed reviews from GLOW so I wasn’t expecting much, but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.

I really love the theme of religion in GLOW. I’m not a very religious person, but it definitely made me think of the impact of religion in a society. Religion is important to the plot of GLOW but one does not have to be a religious person to enjoy the book. Religion was the deciding factor that determined which ship a person ended up in: the Empyrean (non-religious) or the New Horizon (religious). GLOW made me think of why religion starts, what it does for a society, and why it is important and sometimes necessary. GLOW isn’t preachy at all, and it definitely gives insight to both positives and negatives for religion.

My major complaint with GLOW is the characters. I thought that the premise was interesting and the plot was engaging, but I had a hard time enjoying the story because I felt disconnected to the characters. I think my problem was the fact that I didn’t know who to trust. GLOW is written in third-person, alternating between Keiran and Waverly. I usually blame my disconnection with the characters to the point of view, but not in this case.

Keiran Alden is technically supposed to be the protagonist, but couldn’t sympathize with him. I felt that as the first born on the Empyrean, he had lived a much more privileged life than the others, and I just didn’t like that about him. It’s not his fault, of course. On the other hand, I really wanted to like Seth. I like his interactions with Waverly, but I didn’t understand how he could be so mean. I sympathized with his character, but I didn’t understand any of his actions. I do like Waverly’s character. She might not be physically strong, but she’s mentally fit. She’s clever and I love that she is determined never to give up.

GLOW‘s audiobook is narrated by Ilyana Kadushin and Matthew Brown. Like the novel, the two voice actors alternate narrating the story. Since the point of view is third person limited, the narrators are not exactly the “voice” of the characters. However, the story itself provides many opportunities for the actors to portray Keiran and Waverly’s voices through the dialogue. Both Kadushin’s and Brown’s narrations are rich with emotion.

One complaint, however, is that the amount of characters in GLOW makes it difficult to differentiate between one voice from another. Brown does alter his voice slightly in between characters during a conversation, but sometimes it is hard to tell when one character stops speaking and when another responds. Furthermore, as much as Waverly is my favorite character, I did not like the way she was portrayed in the audiobook. Just from the way she talked, I couldn’t help but feel as if she sounded a bit dumb. I thought that when she was first introduced by Brown in the first chapter of the audiobook that it was just because it was read from Keiran’s perspective, but that wasn’t the case. In the following chapter, Kadushin similarly portrayed Waverly in that manner. She sounded less confident and unsure of herself than I first imagined her to be.

The premise of GLOW was fantastic, and I can actually see myself continuing the series. There are many questions left unanswered in GLOW, but the ending wasn’t very much of a cliffhanger so I felt satisfied upon completion. I would definitely recommend this one to fans of science fiction. As to whether or not the print or audiobook version is better, I think I would have to go with the print version this time around. I think audiobooks work a lot better from the first person perspective.

If you really want me to compare it to Across the Universe, I’ll say this: I’m not a fan of Across the Universe and I definitely enjoyed GLOW a lot more. Predictability-wise, there were some things that I didn’t see coming. Romance isn’t that big of a deal as it was in Across the Universe which was great. GLOW has a lot more meat to it because it actually made me think.

[Amber]

Earth has become almost uninhabitable, and so two sister ships – The Empyrean and The New Horizon – have been set off into space to commence their journey to New Earth. Our two main characters, Kieran and Waverly, are on one of those ships.

So as you may have deduced, this novel is a sci-fi/dystopian. Don’t you just love those? I do. Ever since I read Across the Universe I have been fascinated by the genre, and I was so excited when I received this ARC in the mail. As predicted, Glow did not disappoint – I absolutely ravished it.

The story is told in two points of view – Kieran and Waverly’s – and in alternating parts. We are first introduced to The New Horizon, where Kieran and Waverly are the eldest children. They are greatly favoured, as previously to them being born, the females of the ship had been infertile. I won’t go into too much detail about that, because there is so much to be explained and explored, and I wouldn’t want to ruin any potential surprises!

Something inevitably goes wrong, and causes Waverly and her boyfriend Kieran to be separated. I, for one, was quite looking forward to the change in status, but anyway, let’s continue.

The main story arc of the book was excellently dealt with; there were many twists and turns throughout the plot, and lots of action scenes thrown in! The plot was fast moving, yet I didn’t have any trouble keeping up with what was going on. There were some time jumps, but these were almost perfectly well managed, and stayed very consistent throughout the parts.
Most of all, I loved the world building. You all know I love dystopias, and this is possibly one of the best I’ve read so far. The little details were brilliantly though out and executed, and I loved that everything had relevance within the story.

I’d also like to add that I was extremely impressed by the villain. Without mentioning any names, I thought our villain in this book was brilliant. The reasons for the villainous acts were well put across, and you could really tell that nothing was done without cause. Simply amazing.

Waverly, our heroine, was fantastic. She was strong willed, and didn't let anything bring her down. Instead of whining on about how bad her life had suddenly become, she strived to help the others on the ship and to plot a way to get back to Kieran. That said, I liked the fact that Amy Ryan hadn’t made her to be too tough. Things affected her, and circumstances changed her. She had great character growth and her development right until the end of the novel was clear.

As for Kieran... Meh. Usually it’s the girl that annoys me, but Kieran was an awful character. I really wasn’t interested in his relationship with Waverly, and I do not think they are suited in the slightest. Waverly was such a strong character, and I feel that Kieran put her down. His whining especially got on my nerves, along with the preaching.

In fact, I’m rather looking forward to seeing more of Waverly and Seth, and hopefully seeing something form between them. Yes, I know Seth is a bit of a bugger, but he’s significantly better than Kieran and I think Waverly will do Seth good.

And to top all of that awesomeness off, Amy Ryan’s writing style was impeccable. There were a couple of scenes in which I could feel the character’s pain physically, for example in one scene, someone pulls an IV out of their arm and then has to put it back in. This scene and the descriptions just left me cringing; it was awful and yet amazing at the same time. This rarely happens to me whilst reading.

I definitely recommend this book to sci-fi and dystopian fans. I’d also like to recommend it to everyone else, whether you’re a fan of politics, family relationships, religion, or none of the above. You can just ignore the fact that it’s set in space, because I can guarantee you are probably going to love this book!