"The Glass Spare" by Lauren DeStefano starts off like all her books; with an amazing idea and a gorgeous premise. Unlike her Chemical Garden Trilogy and Perfect Ruin (I'm only halfway through) the hype and excitement ends there. The story is of Wil, a princess who is a secret spy (a glorified go-fer really) for her father and brothers. One night she discovers her powers after being attacked. As a nod to the classic tale of King Midas (which is alluded to in the book) her powers are turning living things to gems. She, through events, then leaves her homeland to cure herself. Of course, she meets a boy (Loom) who just happens to be a prince who wants to use her powers.
Overall, this book is the weakest DeStefano work I've read. I distinctly remember looking at page 233 and thinking to myself: "I do not care about these people or this story". It took me a whopping month to read this. with the last quarter being read in a morning as it does pick up. All the characters seem like half developed archetypes and tropes that never develop. While there is a second book coming in the duology that may address everything, you need the first book to be good enough to want to read the second. Hell, I didn't even want to finish the first. A backstory needs to be more than a backstory. It needs to drive motivations and actions, quirks, thoughts, and relationships. /*/ spoiler /*/ Loom wanting to save his country and all is great but we don't know why past the reasoning of 'he's softer than his father/sister'. He grew up without a mother. he had a cold sister, a cold father, influences all around him were: 'kill or be killed' especially since his father put him in a death match with multiple children. He likely rarely left the castle to slum it in the slums and even if he did there's no indicator that anything would motivate him to view the inequality as anything but how it should be. /*/ end spoiler /*/ The lack of character development makes it super hard to care when things happen to characters. Deaths and near deaths mean nothing to me and it's not just because the book is so predictable. The beautiful premise of the story is never given a chance because DeStefano chokes it to death with underdeveloped romances and half-assed world building. /*/ spoiler /*/ The attraction between Loom and Wil is some of the dumbest shit I've read since "Twilight". The whole idea of society's castaways is stupid and not believable because no one explains how curses work. It comes out of the blue and just leaves more questions than: "why the hell is Loom so obsessed with Wil after 7 hours of knowing her?" and the fact that Wil's attraction is very slow, if at all present, blows a big hole in that explanation. /*/ end spoiler /*/ The only thing about the world building I like is the idea of concealing the royal children so they're harder to assassinate. The way DeStefano's OCD translates into the characters in the books is really interesting. I had read about it beforehand so I was looking out for it. It's quite apparent in Wil's mother but much more subtle in her children. My final talking point is the perspective. It's third person and switches character focus which I usually like but, it was done randomly with Wil being 90% of the book and some people only having one chapter. Perspectives aren't ever revisited and I don't believe we see Loom's perspective.
Overall I give the book a hard 1/5.
Also, there was another character (Zil? I forgot her name lol) she's a trainwreck walking.