Review: Glow (Sky Chasers #1) by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Glow

Author: Amy Kathleen Ryan
Series: Sky Chasers, #1

Synopsis (goodreads): 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?

Out in the murky nebula lurks an unseen enemy: the New Horizon. On its way to populate a distant planet in the wake of Earth's collapse, the ship's crew has been unable to conceive a generation to continue its mission. They need young girls desperately, or their zealous leader's efforts will fail. Onboard their sister ship, the Empyrean, the unsuspecting families don't know an attack is being mounted that could claim the most important among them...

Fifteen-year-old Waverly is part of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space; she was born on the Empyrean, and the large farming vessel is all she knows. Her concerns are those of any teenager—until Kieran Alden proposes to her. The handsome captain-to-be has everything Waverly could ever want in a husband, and with the pressure to start having children, everyone is sure he's the best choice. Except for Waverly, who wants more from life than marriage—and is secretly intrigued by the shy, darkly brilliant Seth.

But when the Empyrean faces sudden attack by their assumed allies, they quickly find out that the enemies aren't all from the outside.

Review

In the words of Hermione Granger: "You foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach!". This statement doesn't even begin to describe my feelings towards some of the characters in this book, but it's relatively close. There were times while reading this book that I just wanted to scream and throw it and yell those exact words. The characters in this book are entirely complicated and utterly complex. One minute, they're sweet as can be and you really like them, the next they're trying to kill one of your favorite characters and you're like "whoa! Wait a minute! What the heck is going on here?" Most of the things that happened, I never even saw coming. The only thing I knew that was going to happen was from what I read in the synopsis: the main character (or one of them) was taken from one ship to the next in an attack. That was it. After that happened, I didn't know which characters were going to end up dead or which ones would survive, or even how they would survive if they did.

The book switches back and forth between two people: Waverly Marshal and Kieran Alden so you know what is going on on either ship once the two are separated. And people are viscous and utterly terrifying. Partly because you have no idea who to even trust, including at times the two main characters. Once the attack is finished, all the people left on the Empyrean are in total shock, not knowing what to do or how to handle things. People turn violent.

On the New Horizon, people seem kind, yet behind that facade is a maliciousness that is impossible to escape. They want one thing and one thing only: to procreate. Something that they have tried and tried to do but cannot. Waverly is terrified of everyone. She doesn't trust anyone, even when it seems that most of the other captives are starting to believe their captors stories behind what they call "the rescue". No matter what she faces, Waverly doesn't give up hope that her family and friends on the Empyrean are okay and that somehow she'll find a way back to them.

On the back cover of Glow, it says, "Glow begins the most riveting series since The Hunger Games." While I'm not entirely sure if it's the most riveting, because I don't consider myself to have read enough books since The Hunger Games trilogy was published for me to know that to be true, it is an incredibly fascinating read and once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. I was so engrossed in the story of these two young peoples lives, hoping that they would make it out of this crazy situation alive to go on to New Earth. I was captivated until the very last page. Every character draws you in and you can't help but be sympathetic to all of them. Or almost all of them. You love them, then you hate them and you have no idea which emotion you should be feeling towards them. One character even reminded me a bit of Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter, and I assure you, it was not a comforting thought. I instantly disliked her. There was only one instant in this entire book that I felt even the slightest bit of sympathy for her, but that was all gone after what she did in the moments that followed.

There are so many twists to this book that I was often left in shock. Not just from that but from events that occurred while some were aboard the New Horizon. I was sickened by them. And from that came a simple and utterly joyous feeling for members about the ship when they finally got what they had wanted after so long, but then once you remember how it happened you were completely disgusted. You didn't know how to feel. It was so confusing, and I was confused until the very end. Actually, I'm still confused! I have no idea which characters I can trust or whose story to believe.

This is definitely one of those books that makes you think. You think about the situation that all of these characters are in: they're all aboard two different ships, the Empyrean and the New Horizon, that have been traveling through space for years and years to a planet they call New Earth because planet Earth has been almost entirely destroyed. New life has been created on the Empyrean, but the people aboard the New Horizon haven't been able to conceive any children at all. Tensions clearly rise with both ships causing paranoia, among other things, all leading up to this huge attack, and you wonder just how close are we to an event such as this? How many more years will it be until we're traveling through space searching for a new home planet because we've destroyed ours? How long would a peaceful journey last through deep space before the people of one ship attack the other? And is there a clearly cut line between good and evil or is there a grey area? The line certainly seems to be blurred in this book. What would we do if we were in their situation? Would we remain calm, have hope and continue on with our lives or would we turn into savages seeking revenge on anyone and everyone who gets in our way?

Let's just say that I absolutely loved this book and I can't wait for the second book in the series to come out this summer! I'm dying to know what happens next!

I rate this book:

(this is the second book I have read for my 2012 TBR Reading Challenge. Woot!)