Book Review: The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead

Book: The Glittering Court (The Glittering Court #1)
Author: Richelle Mead
Published: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Razorbill
Number of Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Rating: 1.5 Stars
Tags: Romance, 2016, 1.5 Stars, Fantasy, Why?

Goodreads/Amazon

Synopsis: Big and sweeping, spanning from the refined palaces of Osfrid to the gold dust and untamed forests of Adoria, The Glittering Court tells the story of Adelaide, an Osfridian countess who poses as her servant to escape an arranged marriage and start a new life in Adoria, the New World. But to do that, she must join the Glittering Court.

Both a school and a business venture, the Glittering Court is designed to transform impoverished girls into upper-class ladies who appear destined for powerful and wealthy marriages in the New World. Adelaide naturally excels in her training, and even makes a few friends: the fiery former laundress Tamsin and the beautiful Sirminican refugee Mira. She manages to keep her true identity hidden from all but one: the intriguing Cedric Thorn, son of the wealthy proprietor of the Glittering Court.

When Adelaide discovers that Cedric is hiding a dangerous secret of his own, together they hatch a scheme to make the best of Adelaide’s deception. Complications soon arise—first as they cross the treacherous seas from Osfrid to Adoria, and then when Adelaide catches the attention of a powerful governor.

But no complication will prove quite as daunting as the potent attraction simmering between Adelaide and Cedric. An attraction that, if acted on, would scandalize the Glittering Court and make them both outcasts in wild, vastly uncharted lands…  

-My Review-

“I don’t like that. The idea that it’s all up to them. That they’re in control. Shouldn’t we have the right to figure out what we want too?”

 

Richelle Mead is a very popular author with fourteen book currently published. I have now read seven of them, and I like six out of the seven. While I really liked the Vampire Academy series, this book did not live up to my hopes. Will I read her other series? Maybe. I think that my problem might just be with this book.

In this book we follow Adelaide as she escapes an arranged marriage by traveling to The Glittering Court, where she will be again placed in a marriage in the new world. There’s forgery, blackmail, murder, and enough talk of dresses to last a life time.

Starting with the characters, I didn’t really like them, at least the main characters. Adelaide first seemed like a total brat. Usually I like the whole ‘girl escapes an arranged marriage’ theme, but this one just didn’t work for me. One of the reasons being that the story line moved so fast at the beginning, and as a result I just didn’t care about her. Sadly I found that she just became more annoying as the story progressed. Cedric wasn’t much better, and I found him to be bland and honestly not that much fun. The story needed a bit of fun, and Cedric was probably the most boring character out there. If anything, I found one of the side characters, Mira, to be a bright and shiny beacon of hope, but she wasn’t in the story enough to make an actual dent of my boredom.

Also, what was with that storyline? We went from the Old Land, to a form of boarding school, to the New World, to the Wild West, to a form of safe haven? Some of those together are awesome, but all together is too much. The first half of this book was mainly talk about dresses, hair, and makeup; the second half of the book was mainly talk about cleaning. The storyline had a tendency to drag, a lot. Also, there would be gaps in the storyline, and there wouldn’t be part of the story there, like the author just decided that she didn’t want to write that part of the book. While sometimes I was grateful for it (especially during the talking about dresses phase), there were times where it left me confused because a big part of the story was just left out. Also, running away from an arraigned marriage, for another one? That could have been thought out more.  

There was a part of this book that was interesting though, and it was the in between part where all of the drama started to unfold. I thought that the story would just continue on with all the drama, and I was quite happy with it. Instead, the interesting drama got (mostly) resolved, and then the rest of the book was left for me to be confused and bored. Not. Fun.

So overall, this was not a hit for me. I found the characters to be unlikable, the plot to be boring, and the storyline to be confusing. While there was a short bit of this book that I mildly enjoyed, the overall result was not good.