Sea Glass

This is the sequel to Storm Glass, which I reviewed a couple blog posts ago. I will try to be semi-vague about the plot so that I don't spoil too much for those who, like me, want to read a story from beginning to end and can't stand to even look at the cover of the next book or open to the last page. (I know some of you do that, however. To each his own, I guess!)

This book was, in some ways, far more intriguing than Storm Glass. Perhaps it was because there is a lot of set-up in the first book, and the second just jumps into things. In Sea Glass, the danger was upped, the magic was cooler, the heroine, Opal, was bolder and more fascinating. I do have to say that the amount of times she almost dies or gets captured and tortured begins to approach the ridiculous. But it also makes the book fun and exciting, and I'm not complaining.

Sea Glass is definitely more sensationalized than the first book. There's more girl-power and more sex. I like Maria V. Snyder, and her sex scenes aren't graphic and are mostly implied, but I do have a problem with her targeting young adults with her books and then being so nonchalant about intimacy between two romantically involved characters. She did the same in the Poison Study series. In her world (and, unfortunately, she's probably just imitating our world), lovers are practically expected to sleep together. Marriage isn't even talked about. Like I said, it isn't graphic, but it's what it says to young adults and the example it sets that I don't appreciate.

I can give this book five stars for entertainment value and four for plot (it was way interesting but just not entirely believable, even for a fantasy world), but I give it only two stars for morality.

Readers of the Poison Study series should enjoy this addition to the Glass series just as much. I'll be reading the next installment, Spy Glass, soon.