About the Book
-
Author:
- Hannah Moskowitz
- Genre:
- Fantasy
Cover Story: The Blues
BFF Charm: Maybe
Talky Talk: Fever Dream
Bonus Factor: F***ing Faeries
Anti-Bonus Factor: Prostitution
Relationship Status: Delightful(ly odd) Dinner Date
Cover Story: The Blues
This cover makes me melancholy. The overall tone, the colors, but most of all the look in the girl’s eyes. Stop looking so sad, Girl. Please? You’re breaking my heart.
The Deal:
The faeries and gnomes of Ferrum has always lived pretty much in peace, with the faeries literally being the upper class and living above ground and the gnomes doing all of their dirty work and living below. As payment for the gnomes’ work, the faeries share their food—and the occasional body part. (Nothing is more filling to a gnome than fae meat.)
But then a group of tightropers come to Ferrum to “liberate” the faeries, and start a war with the gnomes. A war that drives all faeries but four—Beckan, Josha, Scrap and Cricket—out of the city. The four who remain must find a way to survive the war, even if that means making unexpected alliances along the way.
BFF Charm: Caution
Beckan’s an interesting girl. Or, to get specific, an interesting faerie girl. At times, she seemed much younger than her 16 years, but I can imagine that’ll happen to a species that’s, for all intents and purposes, immortal. At other times, a strange sense of maturity shone out through her naivety. She was an excellent, if not always nice, friend, and someone I’d want on my side if I were stuck in a warzone. But would we really get along all that well? Particularly after the war was over? I’m not so sure.
Swoonworthy Scale: 3
There’s a lot of love in A History of Glitter and Blood. But it’s not always the nice, clear-cut kind of love, and it’s sometimes the kind of love that comes at you, wholly unexpectedly. I dug many of the relationships in this book for their uniqueness, but none of them really made me swoon, in the “how romantic and sweet and OH *fans self*” kind of way.
Talky Talk: Fever Dream
A History of Glitter and Blood was not what I expected. On the surface, It’s a book about a group of friends who find themselves doing what they can to survive in the midst of a war. Dive a little deeper, however, and it becomes a story about one of said friends trying to sort through all that’s happened to him. The book might have been written by Hannah Moskowitz, but the story inside is written by Scrap, one of Beckan’s friends.
It took me a while to get comfortable with this style; at first, I didn’t really understand the tense switches (past to present and back again) or the narration shifts (there’s a lot of breaking of the fourth wall*). But as I read, I was able to sort out what was going on. Scrap can be a bit of an unreliable—and self-loathing—narrator, but he’s doing his best. I have to give it to Moskowitz for attempting such an unusual storytelling style.
*For a few chapters, I thought the version of the book I was reading was a really early ARC, and included the author’s notes to herself.
Bonus Factor: F***ing Faeries
Given the Anti-Bonus factor for this book, this probably wasn’t the best way to describe Beckan and her friends … but I love alliteration and couldn’t come up with a better way to describe them. Beckan and her fae friends are crass, they curse, and they aren’t exactly monogamous, even when not having sex in exchange for money. They’re definitely not the precious and aloof faeries we often read about.
Bonus Factor: Glitter
In the world of Ferrum, faerie meat is delectable and filling (to gnomes, at least). But the faeries have developed/evolved a sort of defense mechanism to make them less delish: glitter. As in colorful, sparkly little bits of themselves that they shed from skin. And, like real glitter, gets absolutely EVERYWHERE if you’re not careful.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Prostitution
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and surviving during the war for Beckan and a few of her friends meant looking for work wherever they could find it. For the most part, Moskowitz treats their prostitution somewhat offhandedly, with only the occasional description of what actually transpired. It makes sense, given the writing style, but it can be a little uncomfortable to read about it described in such a nonchalant way.
Relationship Status: Delightful(ly odd) Dinner Date
It took me a while to get into your disjointed stories, Book, but after I stopped trying so hard to follow along exactly and just gave myself up to the ride, you surprised me with your honesty and your distinctive outlook on life. I wouldn’t want to have experienced what you did, but I’m glad it all worked out in the end, and I’m very glad I got to hear it straight from your mouth.
A History of Glitter and Blood will be available Aug. 18.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received my free review copy from Chronicle Books. This review was originally posted on Kirkus Reviews in exchange for monetary compensation, which did not affect or influence my opinions.
