Book: Glow, Book 1, Potency by Aubrey Hadley

Expected Publication is February 13, 2019 by Ruby & Topaz Publishing|Expected # Of Pages: 699

Where I Got It: I got Glow as an e-arc from netgalley.com in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Series: None

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

The Maasai Mara Sleeping Syndrome has returned after a six-month hiatus. This time, it’s popped up in New York, and it’s wiped out an entire homeless shelter.The same night of the outbreak, Harper, a seventeen-year-old girl, stumbles across a glowing figure in the desert outskirts of her neighborhood. As her suburb goes on lockdown, Harper finds herself isolated from her friends and family, and soon begins to suspect that the events — though thousands of miles apart — may have something in common. Harper must find her bravery and embark on a plot-twisting adventure that will have her looking for answers in unexpected places… and worlds.

I was looking through the books on netgalley one day, and came across this book.  It looked interesting, and the idea is pretty cool.  For the most part, I didn’t like Glow.

It started off really good, and I think that’s why I ended up being so disappointed in it.  Harper has this really protective mother who homeschool’s Harper and her sister.  Harper’s barely allowed to the leave the house, and her mom has one of the neighbors watching the house in case Harper leaves.  You’re not really sure why her mom’s like this, especially since it seems like things were like this before the Maasai Mara Sleeping Syndrome.

At first, I was definitely intrigued, and it seemed like we had a mystery on our hands.  We eventually learn what’s going on, but that’s when the book started to lose me.  Once her neighborhood goes on lockdown, and she gets whisked away on this…adventure, I started to lose interest.  It was hard to keep track of what was going on, and it had the potential to be really interesting.  Instead, I was really bored, and it was page after page about why one group was better than another, and Harper trying to figure out this new world.

It’s sci-fi and it felt like I was reading about the end of the world.  I expected a lot more action and excitement and danger, and I didn’t get any of it.  It felt really slow, and we’re told things as opposed to seeing them.  It was a lot longer than it needed to be, and too much time was spent explaining things.  It looks like this book is the first book in a series, even though I couldn’t find any information about a book two.  I expect to see the world and story get set up but we got more than what we needed.

I’m not interested enough to pick up any other books in this series (if there are any) and I’m not completely sure where things are headed in any future books.  With the how the book ended, it seemed like there was going to be a lot of waiting until the next thing happens, and I don’t particularly want to read through pages and pages of Harper waiting until the next big thing happens.  I could be wrong, but I just don’t particularly want to find out.  Especially if it’s anything like this book.  Hopefully not though.

My Rating: 1 star.  I like the idea, and it started off really good!  It just got bogged down in the details, and I really did expect a sci-fi story involving aliens with an apocalyptic feel to be more exciting and action-packed.