ARC Review: A History of Glitter and Blood - Hannah Moskowitz

Title: A History of Glitter and Blood
Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Pub Date: August 18th, 2015
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Page Count: 280

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.

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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Unlike a lot of others, I loved the unreliable narrator. What I couldn't enjoy was the plot, or lack thereof. - Nova @ Out of Time

I already knew what this book would entail. I've read a bunch of reviews - some were gushing and some were one stars. To be fair, I saw the even split between love and hate and I knew that this was the kind of book that was heavily dependent on taste.

The story is about a girl named Beckan but while I was led to believe it's in third person, sometimes, the narrator will refer to themselves as, "I." Yes, it was weird but it also made me question, "who is the person narrating?" They had their own personality, occasionally adding in some side comments. What also really struck me was that they admitted to getting the story wrong a few times. While this might bother some readers, I absolutely loved it. It was unique and interesting and if I had more patience, I would have found out what is going on.

However, while others DNFed for the unreliable narrator, I DNFed because it was boring and I didn't understand what was going on.

The first thing that made no sense to me is how this book is set in a world outside our own. [Please note, if I get anything wrong about the facts of this book, it's because I'm not certain of what happened - yes, I was very confused.] The problem with the worldbuilding is how it felt like Earth to me but it... wasn't? The characters went to a laundromat and they went grocery shopping? There were magical creatures but how was this world different from Earth?

Something else that made no sense was the overall plot. I can't even describe it completely, I didn't get it. All I know is that gnomes like to eat faeries and faeries don't die, even if parts of their physical bodies get eaten. Beckan and her friends live in a world ruled by gnomes. Why? I have no idea. Then Beckan meets a "tightroper" [which I also don't know is what] and they begin to have a relationship. All I know about tightropers is that they their feet look like a regular foot but instead of five toes, they have two. Um??????? Also, they're good with rope[?]

I spent so much time trying to figure out the story [to no avail] that I couldn't even focus on characters. I don't know anything about the characters, save their names. There was so much going on in this book that I tried to focus on one thing and ignored the others. Worse? I couldn't even understand that one thing I was trying to focus on.

I think I gave up halfway? By then, there wasn't a plot. I was bored, confused and ready to give up. So, unfortunately, I did.

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Hannah Moskowitz wrote her first story, about a kitten named Lilly on the run from cat hunters, for a contest when she was seven years old. She was disqualified for violence. Her first book, BREAK, was on the ALA's 2010 list of Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, and her book GONE, GONE, GONE won a Stonewall Honor in 2013. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 2013, and now lives in New York City.