Glass Town Wars

by Celia Rees

All these Glass Town intrigues. No matter how long you'd been absent, how far you'd travelled, once you were back, it was as though you'd never been away.

Tom and Augusta are from different places and different times, but they meet in the virtual world to combine forces in battle, to save a kingdom, escape a web of deceit and to find love. In a place where fictions can be truths and truths fictions, learning who to trust is more than friendship, it is about about survival.

Glass Town Wars, inspired by the early writings of the Brontës, is a captivating, magical novel by the renowned Celia Rees.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Celia Rees (born 1949) is an English author of children's, YA and Adult fiction.

She was born in 1949 in Solihull, West Midlands but now lives in Leamington Spa with her husband. Rees attended University of Warwick and earned a degree in History of Politics. After university, she taught English in Coventry secondary schools for seventeen years, during which time she began to write.

Since then, she has written over twenty YA titles. Her books have been translated into 28 languages. She has been short listed for the Guardian, Whitbread (now Costa) and W.H. Smith Children’s Book Awards. She is a regular tutor for the Arvon Foundation. She has been Chair of the Children’s Writers and Illustrators Group and on the Society of Authors’ Management Committee.

Her first book for adults, Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook, was published by HarperCollins in July, 2020.

Reviews

[Alaina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Glass Town Wars was all kinds of confusing in the beginning. Not going to lie, I had a lot more questions than answers. I mean, at one point I just kind of went with everything because the whole entire world seemed interesting but the plot was somewhat dragging. Eventually things started to pick up and I was getting a bit more intrigued than I was in the beginning.

The characters were okay but some of the side ones really annoyed me. Then the whole game aspect throughout the book was interesting enough and made me think of other books that were just like it. The whole virtual reality wasn't completely new to me but I was hoping this one would be different than the rest.

I didn't really see any hope of this getting any better until I got closer to the end. Yet, at the point it didn't even matter to me anymore. I just wanted to finish it and move on with my life. I will admit, some things through me for a loop due to all the weird and craziness. Then there's the ending that was cute but just kind of weird as well? Not really sure what to think after I finished this.. but that's it.

[Aly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book starts out so confusing. For the first quarter, I had no idea what was happening and it made it difficult to care about the story. As we went along, things became clearer, but it was definitely piece by piece. It's important to read the synopsis and remember that this book is based on Emily Bronte, had I remembered that I might have understood a bit more.

I did like the plot idea of video games evolving past VR and actually letting you live the game. I can easily see developers wanting to go that way if the technology were there and it asks the question, is a virtual reality better than living in the real world? At what point does it cross a line?

The ending lacked some details I would have liked to know and was a bit lackluster after all that Tom went through. I am interested in learning more about Emily Bronte now, so kudos to the author for that!

Thanks to NetGalley for this free book in exchange for an honest review

[Jiji · Rating 2 out of 5]

You know when you read a book and it's SO GOOD you can't put it down- you take it while you're travelling, while studying, you sneak glances at it and even take selfies with it because it's just THAT good?

Yeah, this ain't one of them...

I agree with the majority when I say that I finished this book and didn't know what the hell I just read. And let me explain. Firstly, the characters were two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs. I couldn't connect with any of them! They had no motivations other than to get out of a bad situation, only to land themselves in another- even worse- setting.

The plot...did you see it? Because I didn't. And let me tell you- the synopsis is there to misguide you. How can you write a book with a synopsis that matches only 2% of what this book is actually about? This Glass Town setting was so interesting but wasn't built upon. The author was trying to create a world initially introduced by the Brontës, and what did she do? She took their imaginations and snippets of writing only to make it dull and boring- even my curries have more flavour than this book!

So in summary, all the things I disliked/hated about this book:

- The characters
- The plot
- The writing style was so fragmented and bland
- The world-building was meh
- There was a villain-ish character in this book that wasn't ever revealed- why he did what he did- and was just as easily caught (wtf!)
- I still don't understand the dynamics of this story
- The descriptions were long and winded
- The romance element was cringy
- Quick POV changes that confused the hell out of me
- the worst thing about this: THERE ARE SO MANY FRICKIN' CHARACTERS!!!


What I remotely liked:

- The Glass Town descriptions (which weren't expanded on- and had so much potential, but alas :'(
it wasn't meant to be- and I can see why this only has about 13 ratings/reviews...


I'm only glad I didn't spend money on buying this trash because it costs a lot and I would punch myself in the face if I spent my money on this...

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the moor: [...] I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, chapter XXXIV

Confusing. Puzzling. Strange. As I proceeded through the pages of this novel I had similar reactions to many readers in online reviews, but it wasn't till I got to a mention of "true Thomas" that I began to pick my way with more confidence through Celia Rees's episodic and kaleidoscopic narrative. And then I began to understand how its various strands interlaced, and was able to stand back and see the vision the tapestry offered.

Tom is in a coma in hospital after some unclear incident, tended by a solicitous male nurse. Tom's fickle girlfriend posts selfies of herself with his comatose body on social media in order to capitalise on his misfortune; his computer whizz schoolfriend Milo is using Tom as a guinea-pig for an experimental dark web implant; and Lucy sits by Tom's bedside reading aloud her class's set book Wuthering Heights in the hopes that he might keep a hold on the outside world.
And so without his acquiescence Tom finds himself emmeshed with a paracosm created by the four Brontë siblings, the world of Glass Town and its warring polities; it becomes a world dangerous for the dreamer because events in this virtual existence will have consequences for him in the 21st century.

Tom unexpectedly finds himself leading a troop of horse soldiers to the aid of Lady Augusta, who is being attacked by the forces of the Duke of Northangerland and his sons Douro and "Rogue" Percy. With no clear idea of how or why he's in the midst of battle, nor indeed who he really is, Tom find himself and Augusta harried by her human enemies and by Jinns, then seeking safety with the Fairish before being captured and taken off to Glass Town, where Augusta is to be married off against her will. Jeopardy follows jeopardy, all so far making for a unsatisfactory read as it begins feels like the unconnected sequences of a video game -- as indeed it is meant to. At this point I was about ready to abandon what felt like a pointless arbitrary narrative; but the author had surprises in store, and an ultimate purpose.

To say more about the plot would be to spoil the story for new readers, so I will instead sketch in what I think Celia Rees drew inspiration from. First, there is the start of one of Charlotte Brontë's best-known poems, "We wove a web in childhood," describing the creation of the Glass Town stories by Branwell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Much of the material written by the two older siblings survives but of the fictions by Emily and Anne virtually nothing remains except some poems, notes and hints: the younger pair went off to create the Pacific islands of Gondal and Gaaldine but we have precious few details of these writings. They were supposedly destroyed rather than going missing, and if the former it's a perennial mystery by whose hand.

Naturally this childhood network of narratives echoes the contemporary World Wide Web and its sinister underworld the dark web, source of billions of narratives both true and false. Rees's novel explores one aspect -- the notion of virtual worlds -- and how the insertion into the ear of a device termed an echineis (a name taken from the remora or sucker fish) might allow the individual to inhabit an alternative existence. She also points to possible downsides of this existence, that the apparent freedom this gives the player also leaves them open to external control, and that what happens virtually might well have physical repercussions in the real world.

The childhood web of the Brontës combined with today's internet seems the slightest of links to concoct a story but Rees binds these parallels much closer. The Brontë children were much influenced by local folklore about fairies in their West Yorkshire upbringing and so, along with soldiers, courtiers, insurrectionists and others in Glass Town Wars, we are introduced to the denizens of Elfland -- the Fairish -- which in turn leads us to the traditional tale of Thomas the Rhymer. Thomas, you may recall, was smitten with the Queen of Elfland and she with him, but his sojourn amongst the fay resulted in a kind of time dilation for him. It is not hard to see how the 'true Thomas' of the ballads and medieval romances relates to the protagonist of the novel lying comatose in hospital while undergoing adventures in the world of the Brontës, especially at the time when Emily was inclined to create a new world of her own with her sister Anne.

All the foregoing is by way of context, to try and correct the notion that Glass Town Wars is simply too puzzling, too confusing to make much sense. For really this is a story about a love which runs the risk of being unrequited because of the machinations of the foul fiend called Rogue. Will Tom and Lady Augusta get together? Where do Tom's girlfriend Natalie and steadfast reader Lucy fit in? What crucial parts have Milo (who sees himself as a character in Catch 22) and Joe the Guatemalan nurse (who is also a shaman) to play in shaping events? And does Emily Brontë have a role equal to or greater than the Game Master known as Sinbad in the unfolding story? Because, make no mistake, Emily is in truth the mainspring of this fantasia or reverie published in the year of her bicentenary.

Though not a perfect novel, especially after a bumpy first half, I nevertheless became quite fond of Glass Town Wars, with its anachronisms, sudden shifts of environments (indicated by differing chapter illustrations) and its distinctive players. I enjoyed the interplay of the various components, especially when it seemed that few details if any were superfluous: for example, when Augusta dresses up and dances as 'a Moorishco' the jingling sounds of her costume recalls the tinkling bells of the Queen of Elfland horse from the Thomas the Rhymer tale.

And of course it's no coincidence that one of the main characters is in a sleeping state, not when Emily's Wuthering Heights ends with Nelly Dean's references to unquiet slumbers.

[Daisy May Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this book last night, and ever since then I've been trying to figure it out. I was excited to be offered a review copy from the publisher as Celia Rees is one of those great and powerful voices in children's and young adult literature that you should always be excited for. She is a wild and wonderful writer and when I heard that she was writing something inspired by the early work of the Brontës I was thrilled.

And I am still thrilled in a way, but in that knotty sort of confused manner where you think you should be happy for something but aren't quite sure if you are; the sort of emotion that makes you question everything about you and do actual real life brow furrowing. Celia Rees is an outstanding writer, but I don't think this is a good book. It is furiously impenetrable at points, strangely balanced, and full of odd pacing and sudden shifts of tone. When I finished it, I stared at it and realised that I didn't know what to think of it. I wasn't sure I'd enjoyed it, even though I knew I loved the parts where Rees wrote about Haworth and the sisters; the intimacy and power of her work here and the way she explored the landscape of these writers was good, strong, wild writing. But I also knew that I'd struggled with the first half, got quite lost in the middle, and then bounded through the final third in as greedy and keen a read as I've ever done.

A contradiction, then, but a contradiction that keeps working on you after you've finished it. I am done with this book but it's a book that's not done with me. I've thought about it all morning, I've begun this review a thousand times and I've begun it a thousand times again. I suspect that Glass Town Wars is a story that's not just about the book. Does that make sense? I suspect it doesn't, but I'm going to try and explain myself. Sometimes when we experience story, we can read it and it's done. Page turned, book closed, job done. But sometimes the story lingers and we can make connections with it in the real world. We turn it over in our thoughts, we think it through and we start to realise that the book we've read was just the part of a journey. It's matured into something else.

And that's Glass Town Wars; it's not the best read, but the moments after it are sort of remarkable. When I reviewed Wuthering Heights, I talked about how this was a book that wanted to be read and to desperately hide away, all at once. Glass Town Wars has something of that quality, delivering a narrative of fantasy and of the Brontës which sometimes makes perfect sense and sometimes anything but. It's a curious contradiction, this beautiful and impenetrable and longlasting thing.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

[Karen Barber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glass Town Wars is a puzzling read. I didn’t dislike this, but I was left frustrated by so many elements.
Fascinated by the Bronte link, but this was not really explored until the latter stages so I never felt we fully got the picture I expected.
We begin with a young man, Tom, who’s in a coma. We don’t know what’s happened to him, but for some reason a friend of his decides to use Tom as a guinea pig in a bizarre gaming experiment. He travels back in time and finds himself caught up in someone’s attempt to overthrow those in power.
Alongside the story of Tom in his travelling guise and Augusta (the woman he ends up fighting for), we find out a little of what’s happening to Tom while in hospital.
While there were a range of aspects to this, they really didn’t combine that clearly. We never got details about what had put Tom in this precarious position, it wasn’t always clear who was being focused on/which world they were part of, and I definitely wanted to know more about the world Tom was in while he was travelling.
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this prior to publication.

[Girl with her Head in a Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

For my full review: https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...

Celia Rees was one of my favourite authors when I was a teenager. She wrote Witch Child, which it felt like most of the girls in my year group read and loved. I also loved its sequel Sorceress. Then there was Pirates! which I reread repeatedly. Truth or Dare was another book of hers that stuck in my mind. So although it has been about fifteen years since I last read one of her novels, I was actually pretty excited when I saw that she had written a young adult novel based around the Brontë juvenilia. I thought this had the potential to be a really intriguing re-imagining of the Angria and Gondal mythology. What I read though was just ... odd.




The novel opens with Tom in a coma. He's a teenage boy who has had some form of unspecified accident that merits the social media hashtag #heroinacoma. Watching over him is his cheating girlfriend Natalie and his "best friend" (who is the one Natalie is cheating with), Milo. With greater sincere concern, another girl Lucy comes every day to read to him and his nurse Joe is also keeping a close eye. But then Milo sneakily puts something in his eye which is described as like a Babelfish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and suddenly comatose Tom's dreams switch him to the world of Glass Town.

There are obvious issues with this set up. It's full of clichés. The catalyst for the drama is a vaguely described Babelfish-esque 'thingummy' which never really hangs together. The nurse Joe is a real deus ex machina available to step in and solve everything when the plot gets boxed into a corner. It was such a disappointment compared to the far more richly-realised stories in Rees' other novels. I also never really understood what the 'point' of the story was. It seemed like Tom just had a brief (albeit dramatic) tour of Glass Town and then ... what? He decided he liked the Brontës and had a day out to Haworth? Is that it?

It's such a shame because Rees' descriptions of the Glass Town universe were genuinely interesting. The glass buildings, the political insurrection, the vividly drawn characters - even Charles Wellesley's unsteady worry that they might all be fictional was intriguing. I had a look at some other people's reviews and was interested to note how several of them were rather baffled as they came to it as YA fans rather than Brontëphiles and so could not keep track of what was going on. While my past reading meant I avoided this, I think that some kind of character index or even a map would have made it more accessible for others.

One idea that I found quite thought-provoking was the parallel drawn between the Angria and Gondal stories and modern video gaming. Other than Spyro and The Sims, I am not much of a gamer. However, in the spirit of sharing your partner's interests, I did have a go at Bioshock a few years ago. While I did not really get on with the gameplay (I'm not quick enough on the trigger so I resorted beating the mad surgeon to death with a spanner to get past the first Boss level), I could really see how it was in itself a different form of story-telling. Boy Who Reads Not A Lot loved Bioshock as a teenager and I could understand why. The Brontë siblings used their Angria and Gondal characters as avatars in a very similar way and it was really interesting to see Rees explore that idea further. It's just a shame that this plot strand never really goes anywhere.

Although I did enjoy the section of the book in Glass Town, on the whole it failed to engage me. I found Augusta a rather flat heroine, which was another disappointment because I know Rees is capable of much more impressive female characterisation. I also found the 'romance' between Tom and Augusta ... baffling. Low chemistry doesn't even begin to describe it. Even the glimpses we got of the real Emily felt under-drawn and I felt really sad that we didn't see Gondal as a collaborative enterprise between Emily and Anne. I had expected Glass Town Wars to reflect more directly the battle between the opposing camps of Charlotte and Branwell versus Emily and Anne as each tried to maintain dominance over the narrative. Instead we got this limp internal struggle and it felt utterly lack-lustre. I continue to think highly of Celia Rees as a writer but sadly Glass Town Wars does not put up much of a fight.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Glass Town Wars was a strange book. The premise was interesting, and at first I was intrigued as to how the story would progress, but by the time I was done, I wondered what I had just read. There were plenty of fun moments, but overall I wasn't certain what the story was trying to accomplish, and I never fully bonded with any of the characters or got immersed in their situations. I think perhaps Rees attempted to cram too much in, which left the world building and characterisation a little flimsy. For me this was a 2.5-star read. It had plenty of potential but, for me at least, it didn't quite come together. However, if you are looking for a YA fantasy that offers something completely different and 'out-there', you might want to give it a try.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Samantha (A Dream of Books)]

Review to follow...

[Moony (Captain Mischief) MeowPoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF 50%
I don`t know what i was reading, but did i like it? Nope. I ended up DNF it. it was not for me.

[Angie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was approved to review this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. After examining the publisher’s profile and finding no indication of their preferred timescale, I am publishing this review now. It will be cross-posted on my book blog "Bookmarked" ( https://angiesbookmarks.wordpress.com... ), Goodreads and NetGalley.

I was confused by the fact that I was approved to review an advance copy on NetGalley. The book is slated to come out in September 2020, but after a quick google search, it seems it has already been published in paperback and hardback. Is this an advance copy or something else?

Regardless, I would like to preamble this review by saying that I physically could not bring myself to finish this book and had to leave it at around the 40% mark. I rarely do not finish a book, no matter how bad it is, but Glass Town Wars was genuinely impossible to read. This review will cover what I have read of the book and explain as precisely as I can why I found it so hard to enjoy. Albeit a long review, I hope the comments below will be helpful.

WHAT I LIKED

Glass Town Wars follows Tom, a child in a coma who is given the opportunity to enter the world of a videogame. There he meets Augusta, a warrior determined to assert her agency over her life and fight for her freedom. Their paths intertwine and as they help each other, they fall in love. However, the more Tom becomes invested in the videogame world, the more he draws away from his family, his friends, and his reality.

The concept sounded amazing and fresh. It made me think of the movie Avatar (the protagonist becomes more and more dependent on his surrogate body when his human body has suffered partial paralysis and forces him in a wheelchair, and in this way romances his otherworldly love interest), within a Ready Player One framework and the melancholy of Bridge to Terabithia.

I can appreciate the way in which "real-life" Tom was conjured. Despite the problems I outlined below, I did find his frustration at his condition realistic. I could feel his powerlessness. Being able to sense the other characters only via sound, smell and occasionally touch added a veil of fear which I believe would have enriched his character if built upon more.

When I was accepted to review this book, I was incredibly excited. I was looking forward to themes of family love and friendship, fantasy and reality, to an engaging bildungsroman that would see Tom (and Augusta) mature. All of this in a YA format seemed like the perfect recipe for a new bestseller. Alas, none of my expectations were met.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

If this really were a game, it would be a very glitchy one.

The first chapters (1-5) are confusing, disjointed and frustrating to read, and effectively encapsulate most of the book’s problems going forward. To avoid spoilers, I have tried to limit my discussion to the first five chapters, as the following chapters present the same issues. I have identified them as follows:

Plot
There is no clear sense of storyline or plot or stakes. I am suddenly being introduced to a large number of characters – often without context – but relationships among them and to the plot are not clarified. There isn’t a clear antagonist that spurs the characters into action. What do they want? What is stopping them? How? How do they overcome it?

Writing and Pace
The writing is disjointed, fragmented and bland. I often struggled to follow the narrative progression within the same paragraph, and none of the descriptions had anything particular or unique about them. There is a recurrent and often incorrect use of semicolons which exacerbates the already long and winding descriptions.

Throughout, the action keeps switching scenes without any apparent logical progression or build-up (e.g. in Chapter 8 Augusta was talking to a messenger and suddenly they are being attacked by something undefined as the messenger is reporting on it).

Pace and plot are swamped in exposition, resulting in a slow and uneventful read. Diction is at times too colloquial for prose and would be more appropriate if limited to speech (e.g. “he kind of bonded with them”).

World-building
Consequently, the world-building falls flat. Many things and sights are mentioned, but not built upon. While certain descriptions go on for several sentences, there is a very vague and nebulous sense of place. I have no idea where the game/book is set, if it’s similar to our world or not, what kind of history it has, who are its people and what kind of strife is tearing them apart.

Missing Context
Many things are mentioned but never contextualised. For instance, in Chapter 2 we see Tom in a coma and Milo mentions “hashtag heroinacoma.” While I appreciate the difficulties a boy in a coma may have concentrating, as a reader I would have liked a bit more context around his situation: why is this hashtag important? How did he end up there? What even is Milo’s relationship to Tom? I mildly understood that they used to be friends but Milo presents itself more as antagonistic than amicable.

I think more context could have been given easily, since Tom has the presence of mind to hear Milo’s arrival from a mile away by the sound of his shoes, as well as reminisce about when Milo passed his A levels and his wealth. There is a little bit more about Tom in Chapter 6 or 7, but still nothing that would give me any relevant context or make me care.

The introduction to the VR project is rushed and feels incredibly improvised, almost like an afterthought. Being named after a mythological fish did not make it more intriguing, just somewhat weirder. There is apparently no rhyme or reason to this project other than “it seems cool.” It becomes secondary during the story while I believe it should have continued to play a central role.

In Chapter 3, the “Twelve” and the “Genii” are mentioned without a clear explanation of what they are, who they are, and how they are relevant. In Chapter 4, there is a mention of the “Glass Town Faction” even before we know what Glass Town is and that there is a war going on.

Character Development and Reader's Investment
There is little insight into the main characters, let alone the others. There is little to no sense of voice or point of view, of motivation and emotion. They feel two-dimensional. They’re built out of exposition, not action (telling instead of showing). As a reader, this completely shuts me out from the narrative.

I am not invested in their stories, and thus I am not brought to care. They just exist, and I find no motivation to keep reading about them. Readers need to care in order to keep reading, readers must be invested in the protagonist’s future, and the writing does not achieve this.

Audience
I believe the audience of this book should be redefined. On NetGalley, this is identified as "Teen&YA." Considering other examples of famous YA literature in circulation, this one (as it is) cannot compete fairly. I don't think it would appeal to a sixteen-year-old reader or older; an age range of about 10-12 years old feels more appropriate to me.

Point of View
Sudden and unannounced shifts in point of view are extremely disorienting. Chapter 4 starts with an unnamed “She” and then switches to an unnamed “He.” I am incredibly confused by this change. The point of view then switches again at the end of the chapter. Multiply this for each chapter. Confusion abounds.

This spasmodic and fragmented kind of narrative will hardly appeal to younger readers, to whom this book is marketed. It makes the book hard to read and follow (even for an adult!), and thus will unlikely be to their taste.

Inconsistencies
There are several inconsistencies, some of which I have reported below:
• If Roberts, Webster and Tom are on a secret mission to raid the camp of its flags, why are they killing men needlessly?
• Why are they collapsing a tent without killing those inside? This is not being stealthy.
• Why are two soldiers sent to watch Tom (a potential enemy) follow his orders and agree to split up?
• Tom seems to very quickly decide Augusta needs him and get a sense of purpose out of a grand total of five minutes they have seen and spoken to each other.
• Tom is simultaneously aware and unaware of being in a game, which made his questions (e.g. “how do I know what this is?”) superfluous and annoying.
• I would argue the military strategy behind sending a possible enemy back to his potential home camp, thus giving him the opportunity to raise the alarm and get Augusta’s men killed.

Spelling Mistakes
There were several spelling mistakes, suggesting the book still needs to go through the proofreading stage.

Chapter 3
I would like to mention Chapter 3 separately, as it was unfortunately, in my humble opinion, a complete failure. Hardly anything makes narrative sense and it left me disoriented about plot, characters, point of view, lore, place and time.

 

Overall, as the book stands now, it gave me the impression that this is more of a draft than a finished novel. It feels unpolished, incomplete. Unfortunately this book really wasn’t for me, despite the amazing premise that drew me in. I hope other readers will find something they enjoy in it!

[Ama · Rating 2 out of 5]

***I received an uncorrected proof of this ebook from netgalley in exchange for an honest review***


Nothing is straightforward. Nothing is as it seems...
As in life, so in dreams.✝


⭐⭐

Well... this book was a bit of a confusing mess, as was its intent I think? Unfortunately, there were always more questions than answers. The protagonist, like the reader, was new the the Glass Town world but... he didn't ask enough questions. He just kind of went along with all of the chaos and dragged us along for the ride.

This book felt somewhat like a fever dream... some sort of amalgamation of various plot threads going in every direction. Connecting, but also not connecting at all. I was very confused- to the point I needed to jot down little notes to keep track of all of the characters and their motivations... Which, the motivations of almost every single character were very opaque. They wanted power, or freedom?? Money?? I don't really know...

I loved Celia Rees' books when I was younger. They're some of the only middle grade books that stayed on my shelf into adulthood (specifically: Pirates, Witch Child, and Sorceress). I was actually really excited to get approved for this book; but it just didn't do it for me. I almost wonder if I'm a little bit too old to be engaged by the wondrous chaos of the Glass Town world... I could see younger readers loving this.


✝check against final text

[Assikatsum]

I didn't finish reading this after all, it didn't really pull me in at all - rather felt like a struggle to read (the writing style, story, characters), so I left it unfinished.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was offered a copy of this book to review from the publisher and was so excited to accept. I had read some of Celia Rees' books as a teenager and although I don't remember much about them now, I do remember that my friends all read 'Pirates' when we were at school and we loved it. So I had high hopes for a new book by this author. I gratefully accepted and looked forward to getting stuck in.

May contain some spoilers ****

I started this book about 6 weeks ago, I don't have as much time to read as I used to so it is taking me longer to read books, but I also struggled to get really invested in this one.

When I first started the book I was intrigued, Tom is in a coma after and illness or an accident - I'm not really sure, he has a host of people visiting him, including his girlfriend, a mate named Milo and a nice young girl named Lucy who sits and reads to him not knowing whether Tom can even hear her.

Then one day Milo sneaks something onto Tom and it transports him into a Virtual World, thrown in at the deep end, Tom must learn to survive. Whilst there he meets Augusta who I think is a princess of some sort, and together they fight battles, meet magical creatures and a host of other adventures.

This book had a really promising start, I was a little bit confused as to what was going on at first but I slowly started to get into the world. I liked Tom as a character, he is a bit shy but not afraid to get stuck in and seems polite and thoughtful. The Virtual world seemed like a really interesting place and I was looking forward to seeing what Rees would do with it next.

There are quite a lot of characters and I must admit I don't really know who all of them were or what they did. I ended up having a couple of weeks when I didn't read much and I when I came back to it, I was totally confused as to who most of the people were. It took me a bit of effort flicking back through some pages to place who was who and even then I was a bit puzzled with some but I kept reading in the hope it would become clear.

When I did get back into it, I was quite quickly back into the world and reading quite fast. This book to me is a bit of a puzzle though, parts of it I really enjoyed and other bits I either found a bit slow or just a bit annoying. I wanted to get back to the main story but there seemed to be a lot of side plots going on.

There was something about a forced marriage that took me a while to get into, especially as it was clear Augusta loved Tom at this point, but the next thing I knew they were flying away in a Helicopter (that didn't even exist in the time the 'game' was set - but is then explained as a development from the game player) Then they were fighting Zombies and running away somewhere, I got really confused as to what on earth was happening.

All the while you are split between the Virtual world and the Real world. This book had some truly amazing ideas and some really well written chapters and some great imagery and adventures but at the same time it had some really confusing bits.

I still can't decide if I actually enjoyed it or not, it just left me confused. Maybe if I read it again in one go, or with less of a delay in the middle it might make more sense, but I don't think I liked it enough to want to read it again.

It just left me feeling like I wanted more, or if not more - something different, something more direct - follow the parallel story lines but keep them parallel - don't let the Virtual one zoom off in a million different directions.

Overall I think it is a book that could be enjoyed and has some great ideas but to me felt a little bit muddled.

I realize that it is also apparently based on some childhood stories written by the Bronte's but the inclusion of 'Emily' in the book didn't really add anything for me. In fact it was just another name I had to work out.

This is a book that will certainly take you on a ride of emotions, but to me - left me mainly confused.

[Tiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Musings:

So I didn’t like this book. I tried to enjoy it, but it isn’t the story that it says it is. It’s weird, but not the weird I fall in love with. It took a lot of old tropes and meshed it together to try and come up with a real story that seemed more of a ghost of something that many have written so much better before.

I’m not writing this in my usual format because I literally didn’t like anything about this book. Some of it was ok. Vaguely. But, even then I don’t remember a single name but Tom, and he was the only character I only vaguely liked, but even him I had problems with.

This apparently was supposed to be set in a video game world, but none of it felt like an actual video game. It felt like it was written by someone who knows nothing about them and didn’t even pick one up to get a feel for what it’s like. Even narrative driven video games aren’t like this.

I felt like she should’ve written a western themed novel and just left it at that, but she decided to bring it into another “game” completely negating pretty much everything about The Glass town narrative and to throw in some zombies? It felt sloppy. It was confusing and honestly I don’t even know what kind of story this even was?

It certainly wasn’t a love story despite Tom getting with another girl character. There was no real connection there. Literally the only thing was that Tom is from modern times and understands modern ideas and believes in the girls right to chose her partner instead of being arranged to marry. Other then that I did not see any other connection. It came off as very flatly written.

The only reason I didn’t give this book a one star is that I didn’t hate it and it’s bad but I’m mostly just indifferent about it. Anyway, I read it cause I’d heard nothing about it and now that my curiosity has been curbed I am happy to move on from it.

[Annette Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glass Town Wars by Celia Rees caught my attention with an interesting premise. In a hospital bed a young man, Tom, lies in a coma. His enterprising friend Milo sees this as a perfect opportunity to test a new gaming experience, a device that will transport Tom to another reality and allow him to escape the confines of the hospital. In that virtual world Tom finds himself caught up in a war and increasingly drawn to a young woman he meets there, Augusta, who is determined to save her kingdom, but in the real world his friends and family are starting to notice that something is amiss, and when Milo confesses that he knows almost nothing about the device he planted or how to get Tom back, it becomes a race against time to rescue him from his own imagination. This sounded like a really interesting idea, and when I learned that the virtual world described within the book was inspired by the early writings of the Brontes I was all in.
Unfortunately , for me the book did not live up to my hopes. The pacing was very slow, and the story line confusing and difficult to swallow, it did pick up a little in the middle and then the ending felt almost rushed. I struggled to engage with any of the characters which made it difficult for the book to hold my interest. There were some attempts at world building, but they were sparse and sporadic at best. I did enjoy the sections of the book that were set in Haworth and gave some insight into the relationships within the Bronte family and how that impacted on their writing, but the way these were scattered throughout the book made it even more disjointed and confusing.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the Publisher , all opinions are my own.

[Rebecca Veight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom is in a coma. His friend Milo puts a device in his ear, to experiment on him, with a new game which is beyond virtual reality. Thus, Tom is thrown into another world. A world of horse, epaulets, breeches and evidently war. In the real world he can't react to what happens around him. In the other world he is a leader and feels everything. But this world seems to be manipulated by someone else!

With plentiful and rich details, that touch all the senses and a prose ideal for battle and action. Your imagination is 'tickled' by the world building and it is obvious what the author wants to present. I really liked that we see the POV of the 'game' and its characters like Augusta.

Confusing at the beginning, I felt lost with one of the POVs. When Tom starts 'playing' you set aside the confusion and become engaged in the action. So much is happening that you really have to pay attention. It is like a game of strategy. Some changes are abrupt, it feels like there are bits missing. I personally was perplexed in parts, of how some events came to pass.

Playing with the theme of reality, the story has many more layers than first expected. When things start to get even crazier, the POVs start to 'bleed' into each other, that 2nd part of the book is where the story starts to excel.

Intriguing, with a dash of the Brontes and their flair, and a 'fourth wall' feel to it that makes you part & spectator of the story. Even with its faults, there is a 'spark' in this book that keeps you engaged, as do the characters who are beyond likeable. This is a tale of being the underdog and choosing your own fate.

[Trish Leggat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given a digital review copy of this in exchange for a fair and honest review. I was drawn to it (once again) by the cover and the cover alone. That along with the title reminded me of John Green-esque contemporary book. When I read the synposis it seemed much more sci fi based so I thought 'Why Not?' and clicked request.

We start out by being introduced to Tom, a young man in a coma. How he got there we don't know beyond a social media following of #heroinacoma, and a dodgy girlfriend and Best Mate who are cheating on him together. We then meet Lucy and Joe who are less connected but seem to care more. Lucy is someone who comes to Tom's room in the hospital to read to him and Joe is one of the nurses attending to him. The Dodgy Best Mate then decides that this is a good time to test a piece of tech on Tom. Its sort of like a babblefish from HItchhiker's but it puts him into a false reality where he has various adventures.

Overall this was a confusing book. I liked it is so far as I could grasp where we were and what was going on. There was supposed to be a basis/underlying story that had Bronte undertones but, in all honesty, if I hadn't been told I wouldn't necessarily know that.

The writing was good in and of itself, the world building was where the book lacked. It felt very confusing and very 2 dimensional. I would have loved to have learnt more about the places.

This was a 2.5/5 for me! (rounded up to 3 for GoodReads)

[Moray Teale · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a shame. I was so thrilled by the idea that this was inspired by the imaginary world of the very young Brontës but was sadly disappointed by the execution. The characters are very thinly drawn, lacking clear motivations and drifting wherever the plot took them without thought it agency.

The plot has issues, not least because it is very unclear what is happening in the initial chapters. A decent knowledge of Wuthering Heights helps, what doesn't is that this is my least favourite Brontë novel! Glass Town is beautifully described but poorly developed as a setting and I just couldn't get on board with Rees's idea that the Brontës childhood world as a parallel for the internet except for the description of them both as "webs". The uneven metaphor is echoed in the sudden shifts of tone and setting and the frankly incomprehensible romance that felt like a box Rees for some reason thought she needed to tick.

The game aspect with its virtual reality features reminded me a little of the Otherland series by Tad Williams, which I read many years ago and am now keen to read again. In that way Celia Rees had done me a favour, I hope rereading that will be a more satisfying experience. For a brilliant take on Glass Town is suggest The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M. Valente.

[Chiara · Rating 1 out of 5]

'Glass Town Wars' had a unique plot but couldn't keep my attention

Glass Town Wars by Celia Rees ★

"The next day, all that was left to show was a faint staining on the marble piazza, pink on grey."

I received this e-book from Netgalley. This does not affect my review or opinion. All thoughts are my own and I'm being 100 per cent honest. Thank you to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for providing me this e-book for reviewing purposes.

I don't like to write negative reviews, but I really did not like this book. The blurb made the plot sound so unique and interesting and I was so excited to read this book. However, from very early on I already knew this wasn't going to be amazing. Throughout most of the book I had no idea what was going on. The story couldn't keep my attention.

Go to my blog to read the full review https://www.heavenlybookish.be/post/g...

[Alex Nonymous · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thanks to Steerforth Press for providing a digital ARC of Glass Town Wars via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love weird books. Smashing together genres and ideas that literally no other human would ever smash together? Incredible. Amazing. I was in love with the premise of Glass Town Wars because the Bronte sisters and virtual worlds? Absolutely incredible.

And then I read it. Glass Town Wars feels like an idea an author's had in the back of their mind for a decade, morphing and gathering more and more potential plot threads. The problem is, none of those plot threads were cut. I'd try to summarize what I read but I literally cannot because there was just so much going on. Too many perspective characters, plot dumps, and ambiguous conflict left me more confused than any book has in a long time.

[A. Lorna Warren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this book!

I really wanted to like this but this one just wasn't for me. The whole premise behind the book sounded really interesting and there were certainly some parts that kept me hooked! ... but then the perspective would change or a new character that just plain annoyed me showed up and I would lose interest again. Some of it was the formatting I think but there was a lot of confusing bits through out. I think this has a lot of potential for the right reader, but that was not me.

[Jade Ellis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I used to be a huge Celia Rees fan when I was in my teens, even though I'm pretty sure it's been over ten years since I read a book by her. When I saw Glass Town Wars I didn't even need to think before requesting it.

I was so unbelievably dissapointed. From the very start, I had no idea what was going on and as the story went on I realized that I didn't massively care to find out. The writing wasn't engaging and I didn't care for any of the characters.

Unfortunately, despite my previous love for this author, I was unable to finish this book and gave up at 30%.

[Suzanne Bhargava · Rating 4 out of 5]

It would seem from other reviews that lots of readers found this book too confusing to be enjoyable. And while I found that to be the case at the start, my perseverance paid off once the penny dropped and I had pieced all the different landscapes and timelines together. Glass Town Wars is a mashup: The Matrix, Game of Thrones, Ready Player One, Outlander, While You Were Sleeping, The Lord of the Rings (but just the Lothlorian and Minas Tirith bits), and most importantly the lore and juvenilia of the Bronte children.

An excellent read for people who love a complicated puzzle.

[Hillary · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, there are two frames, both very narrowly constructed, which don't fit together in any way until the last quarter of the book. A more capable author might have been able to pull this off, but, in this case, it just reads like you've walked in halfway through a conversation and have to pretend to know what everyone is talking about, then it turns out the chosen topic isn't remotely worth the mental effort you just wasted.

[MaryBeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall the book was ok. It started off a little choppy but the middle through the end were a lot better. I think the tiny chapters about “Emily” would have made a lot more sense, as well as the entire book, if the last section was actually first. The part describing the inspiration and reasoning for the book would have made this more understandable from the beginning. The whole premise loosely of reminded me of the movie Ready Player One.

[Jacqueline Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is not my usual genre, I’m more into crime/thriller books and even psychological thrillers too so I am extremely pleased and grateful to them for opening up my mind to something totally different.

[Kate Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

I volunteered to read this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is a interesting read. It was written well and the characters are described good. The pacing is interesting. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone and everyone. This book is in bookstores now for $12.95 (USD).

[Karen King · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you blend “Ready Player One” with a Bronte biography and add a touch of Narnia and Game of Thrones, finishing off with a sprinkle of a modern Sleeping Beauty, this is about what you’d expect to end up with.
I really enjoy Celia Rees’s books, but sadly this one didn’t do it for me. Just felt messy.

[Lot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Op het nippertje drie sterren, maar eigenlijk 2,5. Verwarrend verhaal. Miste met enige regelmaat een beetje context of extra uitleg. Alsof je een boek instapt bij hoofdstuk 5. De personages waren oké en het verhaal redelijk onderhoudend. Leuke 'verwijzingen' naar de Brontë-zusters.