Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Expected Publication Date: August 4th, 2015
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Beckan and her friends are the only fairies brave enough to stay in Ferrum when war breaks out. Now there is tension between the immortal fairies, the subterranean gnomes, and the mysterious tightropers who arrived to liberate the fairies.
But when Beckan's clan is forced to venture into the gnome underworld to survive, they find themselves tentatively forming unlikely friendships and making sacrifices they couldn't have imagined. As danger mounts, Beckan finds herself caught between her loyalty to her friends, her desire for peace, and a love she never expected.
Review: **Copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
A History of Glitter and Blood was at it's finest - intricate and moving, and at it's lowest - slow and confusing. I read it in one sitting, and I'm still not sure if it's one of the best books I've ever read, or the worst, and it can be compared with possibly no other Young Adult book... which I'm not sure this even is?
The thing I liked best about this book was probably the characters and their relationships with one another. There is a lot of intimacy between characters who were not necessarily in a romantic relationship and jealousy is rarely a thing that comes into play and it was all so deliciously real, you know? At least for a bunch of fairies and gnomes and tightropers. I also really enjoyed how there was no sense of characters being either/or in terms of sexuality everybody just -was- and it worked brilliantly.
The book did drag on a little, especially towards the end. On one hand a lot of it was integral to the story, but on the other parts were so slow that I was debating on just going to bed instead of finishing the book.
I did love all the pictures in the book. They added a significant element to the book and also helped the reader understand a little bit more about Ferrum's history - which ultimately I would have liked more of but as it stands the book did okay without it.
I could understand how this book could make someone uncomfortable - there were quite a few scenes in which the main characters are prostitutes, a fact which is not disclosed in the blurb. This is not something that would turn me off the book, but a little warning would have been appreciated. Then again, how do you casually slip the fact that Beckan, Scrap and Cricket are sex workers to the gnomes who occasionally eat fairies?
I'm still not entirely sure whether I really liked this book enough, but I'd have to give it 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4 for good measure, and I look forward to reading Moskowitz other works.
Rating: 4/5 stars
★★★★✰
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