The Glittering Court (Glittering Court, #1)

by Richelle Mead

Review originally posted at Simply Adrift.

I loved Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series and enjoyed her Bloodline series - Both of these series have strong independent woman who learn and grow through their mistakes or others'. I expected an enjoyable read when I picked up The Glittering Court, I thought it was going to be about a woman taking charge of her life, I thought since this was written by Richelle Mead I would love it. What I did not expect was to feel hollow and confused by the end, I didn't expect to feel so fired up about how much I just did not like this, I did not expect to feel annoyed at the characters or the world building; but I was.

The Glittering Court irked me in so many ways that I can't even remember them all.

1. This book was nothing that I expected. In a bad way.

I thought The Glittering Court was going to be about a woman taking her life in her own hands in a society that looked down upon woman. However this was not about a strong woman taking charge of her life at all; it was about a woman running away with no care or regard to the consequences and how that would affect anyone else including her only family, about a woman breaking all of the rules and getting away with it, about a woman entering a school that trained poor woman to be the best wives they could be for a man.

I had expected adventure, romance, emotion and a detailed world. I felt like I didn't really get any of that, and it made me sad.

2. I was bored and confused.

For most of this story I was confused, I was confused as to why Adelaide wouldn't confide in anyone except Cedric, I was confused about the point of the story, I was confused that Richelle Mead was even the one to write this. I say that because this story felt quite hollow, plain and boring compared to her other series' that I have read (admittedly I have not read more than the two series' above).

Nothing much happened the whole of the book. Or should I say, a lot happened, but none of it was engaging or exciting. Adelaide ran away, she entered a finishing school so she could be shipped to the new world and sold off like cattle, she fell in love (Oh the horror) with the wrong man, her living conditions depleted exceptionally, she struggled through the changes. I just did not care about any of it, for some reason I was not entertained by any of this at all.

It was only near the end that I got stuck in this book, but only because I wanted to know what happened and what the twist was. Also, I wanted to know how the characters were going to get out of the mess they had gotten themselves in to.

3. This book did not sit well with me

The Glittering Court was a book about women being sold off to men to be their wives, while I understand that this was done in olden times, I still couldn't quite comprehend the reason this book was written. Adelaide may have tried to take her life into her own hands but she still conformed to society. She was weak and could do nothing else. I personally did not find this very entertaining.

4. Everything was obvious

Everything about this book painfully obvious, the romance was so clear it was dull, in fact it felt like the 'romance' had been taken out of the romance. Cedric's secret was a boring secret, it didn't really have any meaning to the readers and I felt like it was put there because Adelaide needed a reason to try and win the money of the Glittering Court to help him out.

The only things that weren't obvious were Tamsin and Mira. We were told near to nothing about what was happening with them, so there were no leads to guess what was going on.

5. There were barely any character relationships

I really didn't like the fact that we got practically no character development or much of a deep relationship with the other characters in this book, we didn't get to learn much about them at all and therefore I just could not care about them. I get that Adelaide's two friends will probably be the narrators of the next two books, but that just makes them boring characters in this book. We knew that Mira was up to something, Adelaide knew it but we never got told any of the details. I'm guessing this was to entice the reader with the next story.

I have a feeling I may pick up the next book simply jist to find out what on earth is going on in Mira or Tamsin's world. I don't know if the next book will be about either of them, I'm completely just guessing because of how little information was revealed about them, but I feel like their stories will be a lot different to this story. This story just wasn't the right story for me.

The Glittering Court was a disappointment to me unfortunately. There wasn't anything I liked about it, the characters were boring or annoying, the story felt obvious and plain, there were no kick ass-ing characters - and I so wanted kick ass-ing characters!

If you think you're prepared enough for this book, then go ahead and give it a shot. You may like it a whole lot more than I did.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? Do you agree with my points or not?

Always,
Jordon

This review was originally posted on Simply Adrift