Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Source : Bought Kindle version Via Amazon
Paperback 336 pages
Published July 17th 2012 by St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN 1250007838

Series: Sky Chasers #1

Links : Amazon  /  Goodreads 

If a violent battle destroyed the only world you’ve ever known, would you be brave enough to save who was left? Would love be strong enough to survive the fight? Either way, there’s no turning back… 

The Empyrean is the only home 15-year-old Waverly has ever known. As members of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space, she and her boyfriend Kieran will be pioneers of New Earth. Waverly knows she must marry young in order to have children who can carry on the mission, and Kieran, the handsome captain-to-be, has everything Waverly could want in a husband. But there’s a part of Waverly that wants more from life than marriage… and she is secretly intrigued by the shy, darkly brilliant Seth.

Suddenly, Waverly’s dreams are interrupted by the inconceivable – a violent betrayal by the Empyrean's sister ship, the New Horizon. In one pivotal moment, Waverly and Kieran are separated, and find themselves at the helm of dangerous missions, where every move has potentially devastating consequences, and decisions of the heart may lead to disaster.

Pulse-pounding and addictive, Glow is the first novel in Amy Kathleen Ryan's riveting Sky Chasers series.

Katie Says :

I think the biggest thing I liked about Glow is that it felt truly original. I have not read anything else like it, nor have I read anything with a story slightly like it. It kept me on my toes because I had no idea what to expect.

I really liked this book, and when I run into other people who have read it, the consensus seems to be either you love it or you don’t, but I definitely loved it. I don’t think the summary really does this book justice, because I think this story is so much deeper than what it seems to be. When I first started to read Glow, I admit I was very cautious because the way it started I almost felt as if it had a religious agenda. After I got into it a bit I was glad to see that, that was not the case.

So earth is uninhabitable, and whoever is left on earth sent out two giant space ships  (years apart) to go to “new earth, which will take them 40 something years to reach. 

These spaceships are HUGE, like the Noah’s Arc of space ships! They have animals, farms, habitats with multiple ecosystems,…I am talking huge! The first spaceship is the more “religious” spaceship, and their leader is a Pastor, and our second spaceship is the one our main character Waverly is on. Its not that they are atheist, they just aren’t religion driven / based. Their leader is a captain. (I’m sure you can see now why I thought that they were either going to make the religious people or our agnostic people “the bad guys”.. but it really didn’t work out that way. So to make a long story short, and trying not to give too much away, there was a problem with conceiving children in space. A problem that our spaceship solved, and the other didn’t, needless to say, the other spaceship was not happy. They slowed down and caught up with us, attacked and kidnapped our girls…. I don’t want to give too much away but what they did with them, I guarantee you would not guess! 

You will have to read Glow to see what happened to the girls. Will they be able to escape and get back to their loved one on their spaceship?

Krisha’s Thoughts:

I got my hands on this book just a few days before Katie.  I soooo remember calling up Katie about halfway through and saying that it had just turned crazy and it was a book about God and Jesus in disguise.  I felt like I had been duped!  I'm okay with books with religious context but like to know it before I start reading.  I did jump to some conclusions and the book did take a direction that I wasn't expecting. 

 I am in the "love" category on this one.  I like that they are in outer space on a ship which poses problems and issues all on it's own.  This book seems to be the beginning of a love-triangle type conflict.  But unlike Bella from Twilight, Waverly is a tough girl.  She is the oldest female child on the ship (15 years old).  I just could not even possibly imagine being in her shoes and everything she goes through.

I like that the POV changes between chapters and we the opportunity to see events that could have been missed from a one-character POV.  

There are 2 more books in this series.  I'm hooked.