Glow.

                                         Glow

                      by: Amy Kathleen Ryan

What if you were bound for a new world, about to pledge your life to someone you'd been promised to since birth, and one unexpected violent attack made survival—not love—the issue?

Before I start this review, be warned. I read Insurgent AND The Princess Bride (two books which I consider masterpieces) right before this book, therefore this review may be a little harsh. But I believe this book warrants some harshness.
Intelligent and Heroic Heroine: NOPE
Sure, Waverly supposedly fulfills the new trend in YA, which is intense, kick-butt, troubled heroines, but I didn't get that from her. The depth needed to pull that off just wasn't there. I couldn't and didn't connect with her and all her decisions just seemed too 2-D. She altogether just felt way too flat.


Sweet and Brave Hero: NOPE
Kieran, again, fell quite flat. I couldn't connect with him either. He was neither swoon-worthy nor terribly smart. I might have connected with him more if the truly emotional sentences weren't sandwiched between spaceship talk that I (not much of a space dork) didn't quite understand.

Unique Setting and Original Plot: CHECK
It did accomplish this, because I thought the idea of a secular spaceship versus a religious spaceship was quite interesting. It was cool to see them react and interact with each other. I give props for that angle of it.

Extraordinary Supporting Characters: NOPE
None of the supporting characters stuck out to me. They just seemed like names on the page, rather than people to be read about. That might be why, even though I JUST put this book down I could not tell you even one of the supporting characters' names.

Plot Twists and Action: CHECK
I did find the action scenes to be well written and sort of awesome. Also, there were some unexpected occurrences that I didn't see coming (I wouldn't necessarily call them plot "twists", because the plot remained somewhat predictable.)


All-in-all it had a lot of potential in the concept of it, but the 2-D characterization sort of ruined it for me.