The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead
Published: 2016 by RazorBill
Genre(s): Young Adult, “Fantasy”
Pages: 400
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780448493855
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I need to ask all of you this question before I start my review:
Did you envision Robert Pattinson as Cedric Thorn?
I can’t be the only one right? Right? Pattinson acted as both Cedric Diggory and Edward Cullen and both share certain similarities with Cedric Thorn! Like I cannot. I just cannot. The moment I saw the name ‘Cedric’, Robert Pattinson entered my mind. I can’t envision Cedric Thorn any other way.
That aside, I have to say that I’m impressed with this book for its ability to lull me into its world. I love the idea—very intriguing…but other than that?
Nope, sorry.
There’s so much that Richelle Mead could’ve done with this book. So. Many. Better. Things. To. Be. Done. Here. Sure, churning a book each year (I’m assuming this because Soundless came out the year prior to The Glittering Court, and I’ve never read any of her other books) is an impressive thing. Making sure that book is a brilliant, genius piece of work? Even more impressive, but of course, Mead falls short. I avoided The Selection series simply because it gave me the “RED ALARM: FULL OF CLICHES AND ANNOYING CHARACTERS” the first moment I decided to check it out, and I should’ve known to acknowledge this feeling when I saw The Glittering Court. Can’t blame anyone but myself for allowing myself to be lulled by gorgeous covers, no? But yeah, damn you gorgeous book cover model! You’ve fooled me with your beauty! Ha.
Anyway, Adelaide Elizabeth was a character I thought to be almost akin to Katniss. Fierce, strong. After the first few pages, whoops! That thought completely falls off the edge of the highest cliff in the world. She is boring. Idiotic. Naïve. Foolishly stubborn and also, super dry (As mentioned in an earlier review, by ‘dry’, I mean ‘desperate’ or ‘horny’—or ‘desperate because of horniness/lack of game’). I mean, “Gurl, you’ve been raised as a countess. Rein your horniness in until you’ve properly married!”—To clarify, I have nothing against sex before marriage and all, but for Elizabeth right here, it makes me cringe superbly, and it doesn’t make her any more likable as well. Honestly, this is the same idiot who keeps warning her lover to be “careful” of the PDA he employs when she demanded a kiss from him while naked in a pond and “I didn’t care if the neighborly prospector came strolling by and saw. And I certainly didn’t care if Cedric saw” (p.294). Can you picture my eyes rolling so bloody hard right now? Ugh.
So, as you can conclude from the above, Elizabeth’s basically your run of the mill YA heroine—perhaps the worse of the worst. I thought she’d be intelligent, at the very least, because of her social standing in the book’s world but no, Mead chose your typical narrow-minded upper-society girl (You know the ones used as filler characters in similar novels just so the ‘awesomeness’ of the main character is elevated? Yeah, those) as her main character. And then, there’s Cedric. Cedric, oh Cedric. Your only saving grace is that my mind linked your likeness to Robert Pattinson, otherwise you’re nothing but one of the flattest characters I’ve ever encountered. In fact, all the characters in this book are pretty much stock characters that aren’t developed properly. Hell, even the setting of this book isn’t developed properly—and there’s so many ‘convenient’ plot twists that it makes the entire story even more silly.
Also, have you noticed that The Glittering Court is marked as a fantasy? My brain registered nothing fantasy in this book—dystopian would be close but definitely not fantasy. So yeah, thank you for failing a genre so incredibly hard.
All in all, this book can be summed up in one sentence:
Stock characters, face-palm-esque romance, and uninspired writing.
It gives off the vibe of Mead trying to force herself to write a book simply just to meet some personal goal of having a book published each year or whatever. Honestly, I’ve read better fanfiction and original fiction on writing sites than this book. What a disappointment.
Snow White Hates Apples 