Oh gosh, y'all. I hate so much that I didn't enjoy Starglass as much as I wanted to. I was really looking forward to this one and I was so ecstatic when I got approved for an ARC. But...it just didn't work for me, and I am not excited about telling you why, but I must, and so here we go. But first, as always, I want to talk about the good things.I didn't mind the writing in the book, even if I didn't think it was particularly special. It flowed well and I thought there was a nice mix of description, imagery, and dialogue. The characters were developed well even if I didn't really like them. I also have to applaud the author for including a lot of diversity and the positive way she handled some pretty serious topics and current issues in our world today. The entire population of the Asherah was of Jewish descent, and there were citizens that were GLBT as well, which I thought was really wonderful. Unfortunately, I didn't connect to the characters. I didn't connect to the story. And that to me, was a complete failure. The pacing in this one was NOT good. It started out incredibly slowly and took a while to get going. I never felt that the plot was particularly riveting, and I never really felt invested in what I was reading. It's not a page turner, unfortunately, and it didn't excite me the way I was hoping it would. I think that in some ways it might get compared to Across the Universe by Beth Revis, which I quite liked, and I don't think Starglass was written with the same amount of skill.I'm going to get into the plot a little bit so I can explain where I felt it was flawed, but I will try to avoid spoilers. The main disconnect for me started when I found out about the resistance against the Council. At that point in the book, I did not see the Council as bad or negative so I needed a clearer picture as to why there was such a strong anti-government sentiment among so many of the citizens. It came later, but I felt it should have come much sooner. In a dystopia, for the citizen rebellion to work, the government has to be horrible. I just felt like this one was trying to save its people and rebuild society. The rules may have been a bit harsh, but I never felt they were awful until much later. And that did not last for very long. The Council was not evil, and though the book tried to convince me that it was, I felt like it failed on almost every level.The other MAJOR issue I had was the main character, Terra. She was HORRIBLE. Mean and selfish. Shallow. A backstabber. And I was supposed to root for this girl. I can't really talk about her actions without revealing spoilers, but you should just know that she's one of the worst protagonists I have encountered in a while. She screwed over her friends a few times, hated her brother for leaving her with an abusive dad that didn't even seem that abusive (telling me he was but not showing me), but when he came to her with worries that their father was suicidal, she blew him off. In the end, she tried to fix it, but it was far too late as I grew to hate her more and more as the book progressed towards its climax.My final thoughts on Starglass: I did not get the ending I was hoping for, nor was it the ending I expected. Once again, I was let down by the conclusion of a book. There was just nothing that blew me away here. I was unable to suspend disbelief through most of the story, I couldn't connect to the characters, and the book was poorly paced. I thought the world-building and diversity were excellent, but it was not enough for me to love the book. I'm sad that I cannot recommend this one.
