Book 1 in the Sky Chasers series
AUTHOR: Amy Kathleen Ryan
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Science Fiction, dystopian, drama
PREMISE: Waverly and Kieran get tested as they're split apart by another ship coming and taking Waverly hostage.
MY REVIEW: Glow...is not a bad book persay. It just didn't really suit me at all. The characters were flat and boring. The situations were dark and all but really I felt it was mostly there to shock you and didn't really serve much purpose. And I didn't care for the way the author handled the religious aspects that much.
First of all: why is it every author who insists on putting religion into science fiction always tends to assume that Christianity will be the only religion practiced and that it'll still be practiced the same way? This bugs me to no end. What, Buddhism isn't around anymore? Jewish people are dead? Also apparently in the future, everyone is white. At least according this book. I'm sorry but considering how new Christianity is in terms of religion and how much even now it has issues, I find it really hard to believe this will be the only religion practiced. If that wasn't bad enough, I can't figure out what the author is trying to say here. Is she for religion or against it? Because in the beginning it really felt like she was writing the typical religious book: all good people are religious, all bad people aren't. Yadda yadda. But then suddenly there's a shift and then it's all the religious people are bad, everyone else is good! While I am not really a fan of organized religion (it's been used too much for people to make excuses for things like racism, slavery, the Crusades, etc for me to really be a fan) I think making all religious people out to be pious jerks...is not a good thing. For every rightous religious person I've met, there's also been a awesome religious person who's actually sat and read the bible and forms their own opinions about it. So I sort of think this is a big problem with this book. On one hand though, it does give people much thought so I guess it could be worse.
So honestly I'm terribly split on this book. I'm not fond of it that much. There's a good chance I won't be picking up the second. But it does open up the table for discussion about religion and I do think that's a good thing. I just wish the author had done it in better ways. Though I have to say the one thing that bugs me about this: WHAT DOES THE TITLE HAVE TO DO WITH THE BOOK? No really, does anyone know why this is called Sky Chasers? There were no Sky Chasers here. There was no glowing either. So what does the title have to do with ANYTHING?
WHO SHOULD READ: Christians (who are open-minded), science fiction fans, those that don't mind darkness in their YA
MY RATING: Three out of Five spaceships
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