The Glittering Court By Richelle Mead

I'll be honest when I first started this book I had no idea what it was about. I didn't even look it up. The reason for that is I have loved what Richelle Mead has written in the past. Shes the author of The Vampire Academy Series and The Bloodlines Series. Which I love and read both series twice. So when I saw she wrote this book I have been meaning to read it and finally got it on my library app. Now don't get me wrong its a good book. It's just not up there with the other series in my opinion. Let me explain a little about the book. 

The book in my opinion is a historical fiction book with romance (nothing to steamy) added. That is the best way I can put it. It takes place in a made up place called Osfrid. The book starts with a young girl who is a Countess of this land and has royal blood (at this point she has no name). That's great and all but since her parents have passed they are running out of money. The only family she really has is her grandmother. The book started right off with this young girl who needs to get married  to save her family because they are running out of money. Best soultion?? She marry one of her cousins that way they blood stays pure and they can still live the life they are use too. First thoughts? Barf!!! I know that in the past this was a common practice but no thank you. This young girl wants to save her family but just doesn't want to do it that way. That's when a young man named Cedric enters talking to her of her maidens name Ade/Adelaide, that they have to let go. His father, uncle and him are in a business called The Glittering Court, where they take young women from lower stations and train them to be "proper" ladies and ship them across the sea to new country called Adoria, that is just starting off. Because there is not many women over there and many men want women with higher standards. So they train them for a year, put them on a ship and sell them. I know what you are thinking? What the heck!?! Believe me I thought the same thing. But its not a forced thing. These women get the choice of who they want to marry, they get a better life, most of these women are living on the streets or have very poor families, and they get to go to a new world pretty much. Well this countess makes a plan that she going to change places with Adelaide, because that way she gets to choose her future, she won't be forced to marry, she will get to choose her husband, and she will get to go on an adventure. Her maiden has no idea of this but is to scared to go so the Countess convinces her to flee and helps her with this task. And than she takes her place in The Glittering Court. Of course Cedric knows right away but keeps her secret. From this point on she is refereed to as Adelaide. She makes new friends named Mira and Tamsin. Tamsin wants to be the best that way she gets the choice of the best husbands because that is how it works. Adelaide is fine with this because she knows all this stuff and doesn't want to give it away she shouldn't be there so she stays in the middle of group in all subjects. That is until she finds a secret about Cedric and the only way to help him is be #1 so he gets the best commission from her. Yes a commission! And she does become the diamond as they put it. So when they get to Adoria, she gets the attention from a very powerful man in this new world. Which is great until her and Cedric fall in love. (No spoiler there you can see it coming from a million miles away.) Than a bunch of challenges arise for them to be together but finally they get to be and they get to go to a different area in this new world where they will be safe.

Okay now the reason I did not love this book. They treated women like animals, well taken care of animals but still animals. All that seemed to matter is how much money they could get for each given woman. And I did not like that. Thankfully Adelaide was not a push over and stood up for what she thought was right a lot of times. She decided she was gonna do what she thought was best for her. Which helped a little. Another issue I had is there are so many elements of Mira and Tamsin you do not know about and leave hanging. But I just found out its because she writing books about these characters, so it doesn't bug me as much as it originally did.

I am not saying do not read this book. Maybe you will like it and when all 3 books are out maybe it will be even better because things won't be left hanging. If you have read it or if you are gonna read it let me know what you think :)

Here are some quotes from the book:


“It’s not just about safety. It’s about freedom. Freedom to be who I am without putting on a show for everyone else.”

“Never underestimate your own worth,” he told me. “I certainly never have.”

“We’re all in charge of our own lives – and we have to live with the consequences of the choices we make.”

Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

I have seen the movie why should I read the book?? Yeah I have never understood when I have heard someone say something like that before. Sure you could get the "same" story but its no where the same thing. 

Since I love to read I am one of those people that like to read the book before I see a movie. It was not the case with this book though. Ever since I have seen the movie I have been wanting to read the book so when I found it on my Oyster app I decided it would be the next book I would read.

This book is about a boy named Charlie who is a freshman in high school. It's a typical story of a teenage boy struggles, though he has a lot more struggles than a normal teenager but I am sure a lot of people can relate to him at certain points in the book. I do believe he goes through so much to help make the character more engaging so that several people know what he is going through without all having the same problems. 

The book starts off as Charlie is starting high school, and he doesn't have anyone really to talk too, so he starts writing these letters to an unknown person. At first he has no friends because his only friend just died.That all changes when he meets seniors Sam and Patrick who are step sister and brother. They are a big part of his life and are with him through this journey that he experiences of his first year in high school. 

Now there is a reason I just gave this book 3 stars. I liked it, I really did but at the same time it was not my favorite book to read. First off I am use to reading in typical first,second and third person fashion. This book is written as letters. Charlie is writing letters to some unknown person. Now I can understand why the writer did this. It makes the book more personable. All the letters start off as "Dear Friend" so it makes it seem like you are the friend he is talking too. The reason I did not like this is because it left me with questions. Charlie never share where he is from, sometimes he says he doesn't want to explain or talk about certain things. So to me details are missing. I like to know all the details of what is going on, where it is going on, and things like that because it makes me feel like I am part of that world that the characters are living in. This book didn't have that for me. 

This book can be considered to be a very deep and thoughtful book. Charlie is not a happy person. He is a very sad and depressed boy, though at times he does have his happy moment.You wonder why he is like this because he has what seems like a pretty good life. But you find out at the end why he is the way he is. I actually like that he has so many struggles when it looks like he has a good life because a lot of people are like that. You never know what a person is going through unless you know their thoughts and feelings.

 I am not even sure how to describe this book because it was so different than what I normally read. There isn't much plot to the story,which is another thing that bothered me. I like excitement and mystery, and none of that was in this book. You never knew what direction it was going in,but it wasn't because of the aspect of mystery it was because Charlie liked to talk about one thing and than another in the same sentence almost. 

It had some good points in it and thoughts. It was a very deep and powerful book. Here are some quotes from the book that I did enjoy:

“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”

“You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.”

I would suggest that you do give this book a chance though. It's not bad. I just had some issues with it. And I am not gonna say I absolutely loved it. But hey you might so might as well.

Truth!!!

Books Are Uniquely Portable Magic.

The title of this post is by Stephen King, and I believe it to be completely true. I love to read books. If I could I would read them all day. That is one of the reason I decided to start this blog, so I could share my love of reading with others.
What kind of books do I enjoy reading?? Pretty much anything that is fiction. I might enjoy non fiction but I haven't read any before. My range of fiction books goes from young adult books to romance novels. I love supernatural books that throw romance in the mix. Nothing to scary though because I am a pansy. 
As you can tell my favorite of all books is the Harry Potter series. There is many reasons why they are my favorite. They have a little bit of everything I enjoy reading about. J.K. Rowling takes you into another world so different than ours and I love it. I love how much time she has spend developing these stories and how much detail she has about them. It makes them seem so real, even though we all know they are not. 
So there you have it my first post on my book blog. As you can tell I am not the best writer and my writing style is all over but I hope even with these downfalls I can share how much books mean to me to others and help them feel the magic that each story has. Thank you for checking out my blog.