Glitter

I debated as to whether I’d write an in-depth review for this novel or not, but decided I would since I have a personal connection to some of the content explored. Glitter is described as Breaking Bad meets Marie Antoinette. In the future, where bots dress you and watch your every move, a powerful seed company has bought a palace, and the families in charge live inside likes 18th century kings and queens. In fact, there is a king. And our protagonist is being forced to marry him. What she does to try to escape is the Breaking Bad part.Glitter is definitely unique and a bit quirky—and I loved how different it was. I flew through the first half of this book. Think of it like historical-sci-fi. Not many people have successfully mashed those two together, and I found Glitter pretty entertaining in that regard. However, the main reason for the title revolves around a drug called glitter. It’s highly addictive, and the protagonist who wants to avoid her prearranged marriage to the king starts to make makeup laced with glitter in order to escape. She gets the idea from her father who is struggling with addiction to the drug, and she continues to give the drug to her friends within the court. As someone who lost my mother to drugs, I found the way the book dealt with drug use a little blasé. A bit harmful, too. That being said, I will counter my own personal judgments by saying that it is refreshing to see a “dislikable” female protagonist in YA fantasy/sci-fi fiction. Or, at least, I found her dislikable. She’s incredibly selfish and doesn’t reflect very often on what her actions have caused, including two deaths very close to her. Nor does she ever seem to wrap her mind around what drug abuse entails…which I found odd considering her father and everything she does. Saber, the love interest, seems to be the only voice of reason—but I never quite understood their relationship. It seemed too cold to get that hot so fast. To be honest, my favorite character was Justin, the prince, who—though is super evil and awful and does/says terribly things—felt the most real. He was a worthy villain. (And his quote about Danica being the true villain sent shivers up my spine.) All that being said, Glitter is one of the most unique novels I’ve read this year. If you want Marie Antoinette and evil princes and drugs (as long as possible callous rep over the subject doesn’t bother you like it did me), you’ll enjoy this novel. Will I read the second part? Maybe. I’d like to see Danica redeem herself. Or even own the fact that she’s not the goodie-two-shoes she thinks she is. But I’m not sure. I might try Pike’s Wings series instead, because I really enjoyed her style, and this was my first time reading her.~SATRecommend to: YA readers looking for sci-fi-historical mash up with dislikable female protagonist and drug use, though please read my comments about drug use above.Favorite Quote: “The only thing worse than not being able to be with the one you love is not being able to even see him.” (91)Favorite Word: Anachronism: a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned: A blue light at the lock blinks indignantly, as though scolding us, but soon the anachronism fades and our little cabal bursts into laughter. (13)

Summary: This book was a about a girl named Danica who is betrothed to the king of Versailles (a very interesting society that takes place in the future but likes to relive the fashions of the past and indulge in advanced technologies of the future) , the betrothal was set up by her mother who witnessed an act she used to blackmail the king into marrying Danica. Danica doesn't want to marry the king anymore than he wants to marry her so after finding out about a drug that has recently hit the streets outside the palace Danica comes up with a clever way to sell it in the palace so she can make the money she needs to escape the palace. I gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars, I did really like the story and the concept and the world that was built in the story but i did find Danica's character to be very selfish which i couldn't relate to as much as i would like. I think most readers can agree that for the most part they want their main character to be selfless (or maybe thats just me) also i did think that the romance was a little sudden though i did like how Danica and Sabor's romance was very real it wasn't blissful at every turn, they had realistic problems and misunderstandings so i really enjoyed that angle of the romance. Over all i really did like this book i thought the concept was new and i liked reading a YA novel that was for the older YA crowd. There is a bit of abusive acts that come from one of the main character so if you can't read stuff like that our get uncomfortable from things like that i wouldn't recommend reading this story because there is quite a bit of that. I would say that this book would be more for readers that are between the 16 and up age range because of that and some sexual content and vulgar language.

Picture it my darlings: The palace of Versailles, gold trimmed everything, corsets and coattails, jewels upon diamonds, frivolous spending, a cutthroat society and cakes that would make THE Marie Antoinette weep with longing! *Sigh* cinched waists, social climbing and overly-priced deaths?! What more could we ask for!Now if that doesn’t make you twiddle your fingers with delight, then maybe this will! This little gem is set in modern times, but the inhabitants of the palace of Versailles keep tradition. Their fashions, politics, and dialect haven’t changed a bit…except they make have toned the French down a bit in exchange for English. This, my dear readers, is something like you have NEVER read before.Danica Grayson is trying to buy her way out of Versailles, in the hopes that she won’t be forced to become Queen. Though becoming Queen is a dream for most of the Lady’s residing in Versailles, for Danica, it’s her biggest nightmare. After Danica accidentally witnesses the King murder a young women, her mother blackmails the King into making Danica his betrothed. Now with only months to escape the palace, Danica must find a way to raise 5 million Euros to buy her way out forever. But how? After discovering that her father has a nasty addiction to a street drug that comes in the form of patches, Danica comes up with a brilliant idea and gets herself in touch with his supplier. The drug is called Glitter, and Danica plans to sell it to everyone in the palace of Versailles, in a new cosmetics line. With this highly addictive drug made into shimmering face creams and lip balms, the extravagant women of Versailles begin to spend everything they have in order to be in trend with the fashions and get their fix. But the King is smarter than he looks, and Danica is about to realize that the game she is playing make cost a life or two. She must decide if it really is worth it, to leave the palace of Versailles forever.THIS BOOK. IS. AMAZING.Though this is placed in the palace of Versailles, and has some SERIOUS Marie Antionette-ness all over it, this story is truly something new and exciting. I found myself becoming truly enraptured with the world that Aprilynne Pike submerges the reader in, a world that holds both past and present times. Danica lives in Sonoman-Versailles, where the fashions and lingo mirror that of 18th-century France. But outside of Sonoman-Versailles, the world is very much like the one we live in. People where jeans and hoodies, they have cell phones, and they certainly do NOT have Kings and Queens. The meshing of these two worlds is truly something else, but I enjoyed that most of this story takes place in the palace. The fashions and politics displayed in Versailles are done beautifully by the author, and she even ensures to give the characters a very proper and distinct way of speaking to differentiate them from the rest of the world. I fell in love with the world that Danica was living in, even the horrors of it.Danica was VERY interesting for me, because I still feel as if I don’t quite know her. At first her character seemed much smarter than all the riffraff that inhabits the palace, but at other times she seems just as ignorant. One moment I find her having a very mature and educated outlook on the world, and the next moment she is just as materialistic as the rest of women sauntering around the palace. That aside, I can’t help but adore her ferocity. This girl can be downright cold and calculated, and I…absolutely LOVE her for it. She can make cutthroat decisions and live with them, even if they tear her up a little inside. Though when it comes to a certain death, I am baffled at how tame her reaction is. I was expecting her character to have more human feeling than just crying a bit and moving on! She’s supposed to be the good one!This story is ripping at the seams with manipulation and calculated moves. There are so many ruthless and deviant players that are working against Danica, even herself. The women of the palace are just as you would expect them to be, crawling over each other for the smallest crumb of extra acknowledgement or a chance at a higher social standing. But the biggest player of them all in this tale, is the king. The reader finds out early on that Justin (the king) is an atrocious and vile young man. He is arrogant, selfish, and is not above murder and scandal. His character DOES have a few moments of being…less horrible, which I find myself FASCINATED with! I have a hunch that he might turn a new leaf, maybe become somewhat less of an ass? Maybe not. But the fact that Danica is noticing these small moments as well makes you wonder…Glitter is one of those stories that entices you with a gorgeous cover and begs to be read. It snatches your attention and refuses to let it go, leaving you craving more and more…just like Danica’s cosmetics. I HIGHLY recommend that you guys purchase this book TODAY! Not only did it pull me out of my reading slump, it left me with a bit of a book hangover (which I am okay with). Gowns, games and glitter! You don’t need much else!

This book seems seriously under-reviewed, so I'll try to cover everything here. Try. It's a funny book, the set up is frankly ridiculous (after a global banking crisis, and on the verge of going utterly bankrupt as a country, the French government sell Versailles to a private company with the promise that it will remain open as a museum from time-to-time. A couple of generations down the line the new residents of Versailles are literally living like it's the fourteenth century. But with robots. And massively inconsistent contact lenses that tell you everything the plot requires. And a suitably mixed-race background cast. Got all that?) The heroine, and I won't lie to you here, it's been a week since I read this and I cannot for the life of me even remember her name, is actually quite refreshing as far as YA heroines go. I really liked her. She seemed genuinely clever, loved her dresses and all the trappings of wealth that you would expect from Versailles (show of hands. Who wouldn't??) and expresses her increasing anxiety via extreme tightlacing of her corset.This was where it all falls apart and yet also comes together though. The rough plot, without too many spoilers, is that she has seen the King commit murder and her mother, arriving on the scene blackmails him into marrying her shortly after her eighteenth birthday. She seeks aid from outside and gets a promise that for several million euros they will help her escape. The clock is ticking. How does one raise millions of euros within a year? Drug dealing. Introducing a new drug to the court of Versailles, things quickly get a little bit darker and both more and less interesting. There are events you can predict a mile off. There are some you can't. One of my biggest complaints was simply that for a villain, the King was genuinely sympathetic. After so much time I didn't even understand why she was trying to get away. The two of them seemed well-matched, she was obviously attracted to him, he obviously developed feelings for her throughout the novel and the only gripe she had was that the death of this young woman was swept under the rug. If we're all honest with ourselves, that's a whole lot less worse than some of the shit that gets conveniently ignored where rich people are implicated today. Maybe I'm heartless. The motive for escape as I read this book became less and less convincing as the story progressed and by the end where she was still trying to paint herself a martyr I was getting seriously tired of that song.Should you buy and read this book? It all comes down to this; can you ignore faults? Are you a young woman or an older woman who likes YA. This is not one of those 'it's YA but everyone should read it' books. This is unashamed YA love-triangle trash. If I gave this to my father he'd be ashamed that I'm reading this in my mid-twenties. And yet I really enjoyed myself. Ask yourself - what am I looking for from this book? This is gilded settings, pretty dresses, a bit of girlish intrigue. The darker edges reminded me of the shadows you find in old buildings; still gilded, still romantic and aesthetic in their own way, but there's none of the menace left in them that they historically hold. If that all sounds cool, then you could do a lot worse.

Love anything she writes. Would recommend it.

As expected- rather 'strange' book but still interested.

I ordered this plus another book and they came ealier than I anticipated.None of the pages were bent and it looked completly new.The plot was amazing and I highly recomend this book for readers and fans of the Wings series, like myself.