Reviews: The Glimpse (2)

The Glimpse is the first out of two books in The Glimpse series by Claire Merle.

There were a lot of aspects to this book that I really enjoyed reading. I loved the fact that Merle had set this dystopian fiction not so far into the future. She linked things in her books with things that are going on around us at the moment and things that had happened in the past. It felt realistic in those terms when she was explaining what things had happened. This book was a huge wake up call for stigma around mental health and illnesses. I think it really showed where things could go if we let things carry on the way they are. Towards the beginning of the book I thought that Merle was only really focusing towards the extremes on mental illnesses but as the book went on you could see where she was trying to go with it and why she had put things into that life.

What I did find with this book, is that it never really gave you time to sit to question and guess what was going to happen next. Personally, I like to be able to try and guess what’s going to happen next but I really didn’t get the chance to here. At points it felt so jam packed with information that it was hard to process everything and then other parts just seemed quite empty.

I’m, personally, not really huge fan on Ana. I felt throughout the book she was still quite ignorant about what life in the City was like and the people in there. It felt as though it wasn’t until towards the end that you saw the character development in her within a few chapters, when you had been waiting throughout the book for it.

There were some parts in the book where I felt the plot took a little while to move on but it’s still worth a read and there were quite a few parts that I found enjoyable.

This review was first published at http://steppingoutofthepage.blogspot.com

The Glimpse is a book that combines two things that really grab my interest - dystopian society and mental health issues. I was so excited to get my hands on a copy of a story that combines the two, but I did have my reservations at the same time. Thankfully, I didn't find myself offended by the mixture of the two and I did enjoy this book.

This book is bound to be controversial, especially if you're easily offended. One in four of us have some sort of experience with mental illness, so it's likely that a lot of people could be offended by the contents of this book. If you're able to sit back, relax and get it into your head that this is fiction, it's not real and it's meant to be dramatic, then you should be able to enjoy this one. If I was living in the book, I'd firmly fit in the 'Big3' what with having two of the conditions, and so I'd be classed as one of the full-on Crazies(!) but I am in no way offended by that. I understand and respect that some people aren't as open as I am, but hopefully people won't take this book too seriously. I think the story is actually really good at showing people that all of us have emotions and sometimes people do feel the need to hide them or suppress them. I think that there is a message in this book for the reader to interpret.

The Glimpse features a society where people are categorised into two categories - 'Pures' who don't have a predisposition for mental illness and those who do have a predisposition, the 'Crazies. There is a test for the 'Big3' - anxiety, depression and schizophrenia, three very intense mental illnesses. Those who pass the test get to go on living comfortable lives and those who don't are separated, excluded and live a poor, tough, rough lifestyle. The story focuses around a girl called Ana who has lived her whole life as a Pure, but found out that actually, she does have a predisposition for illness and so is in fact one of the Crazies.

We follow the story of Ana as she discovers her true past, the tragic history of her family and has to come to terms with who she really is. She is still the same person, but if the society found out, she would never live in the same way again. I think Ana actually took the discovery quite well and I did warm to her - I thought she was quite a good character and although I don't love her yet, I could see myself liking her even more as the story progresses. She seemed realistic to me, and thats why I liked her. She wasn't weak, but she wasn't overly brave. I found her to be an enjoyable character to read about.

On top of having to deal with the fact that she could have her comfortable lifestyle taken away from her, her partner, Jasper, goes missing and is supposedly abducted. Unfortunately, this is the part of the book that started to confuse me! I admit that it's not hard to confuse me, but it took me quite a while to trudge through parts of this book as I had to keep checking back on things to see what was going on. A lot of 'facts' are changed/revealed throughout the story and I felt that sometimes we were being given too many different things to try and remember. I know that a lot of people do enjoy that though, and it did seem to be well done, it was just a bit too overwhelming for me - especially the sections about The Enlightenment Project.

Ana meets a lot of people when she is trying to find where Jasper has disappeared to and the story starts to get pretty exciting! I really loved venturing into the (somewhat) unknown with Ana and meeting all of these new, different people in their very different situation. We are introduced first to Lila, sister of Nate and Cole. I absolutely loved Lila - she seemed fun, quite confident and very loyal. Whilst I didn't particularly like Nate or Cole at the beginning, I definitely grew to understand what they were about and I did warm to them. There is definitely something mysterious behind this family that we are only starting to get to know. I found the action at the end of the book to be quite scary, but also the high point of the story for me!

Overall, although I was confused for quite a bit of this book which made it a bit difficult/slow to get through, I did enjoy it and the mystery behind it. As I've said, it is controversial and I understand and respect that some people won't be comfortable with how mental illness is portrayed, which is understandable. If you're able to just accept that this is fiction and are mature enough to understand that people with mental health issues aren't 'Crazies', then try and enjoy this new Dystopian read. I will certainly want to follow on and see what happens next!