A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz

Publication August 4th 2015 by Chronicle Books

Young- Adult, Fantasy, LGBT

eARC provided by the publisher via Edelweiss

My Rating 3.5 Stars

GOODREADSSixteen-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. This stunning, lyrical fantasy is a powerful exploration of what makes a family, what justifies a war, and what it means to truly love.

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MY THOUGHTS This is my second Moskowitz book. I can’t really compare the two, since they are very different genres. This book really took a lot out of me to get through. If it hadn’t started picking up at a certain point, I may have not finished it. I felt a lot of frustration in the beginning, and that is mainly due to the writing style. If I had to pick a genre for Hannah to stick with, I’d pick Contemporary. But….. (and that’s a big BUT), this book totally kicked butt from around 65% on out. Saved! By some intense action, greedy gnomes, and awesome glittery peeps.

I can’t summarize this book. I’ve tried, and failed, countless times since I finished. I keep asking myself, “Why was the first half of this book so confusing?”. It took me too long to figure out  where this story was heading, and I don’t like that. Talk about funky character names! Cricket, Tier, Rig and Scrap? I guess, the names fit for such a weird story. Beckan is a confusing character. I’m not sure if the narration of this whole thing didn’t play a part in my not really feeling her character. I do love how close she, Josha, Scrap and Cricket are. That’s another key thing that made me want to keep reading. They show daring qualities from the start. Hey, they were brave enough to stay in Ferrum after all that happened, and is still happening. I don’t think I’d be brave enough to live in a place where there’s a 90% chance that I’d getting eaten by a gnome.

This whole world is quite strange. In the beginning you just don’t have a clue as to WTF is going on. Gnomes eating fairies and such. It was all jumbled up, and very hard to get a read on the characters themselves. The writing threw me off. I think this is where it becomes a test of will power to finish this book. The unreliability of the narration and the way that it’s written, is thrown together in such a way that you have to read slowly. I almost gave up on it. The pictures/illustrations throughout were nice and let you picture some of what may have been going on. But, what is going on? I asked myself that a million times. The ending was terrific. Can, like, the whole book be that bittersweet?

I’d recommend this book. Don’t go into it with any expectations, though. Just read until you get to that point where everything takes shape. I was frustrated in the beginning but that cleared up by the end. I love the way it all wrapped up. This isn’t my favorite of the 2 books I’ve read by this author, but it definitely won’t be my last.