June 22nd 2010 by Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, 496 pages

Review Copy

Short Synopsis

Hope's life is turned upside down when her older sister Lizzie is institutionalized after trying to kill herself. Alone and trapped in a world that only makes sense through pain and loss, Hope struggles to find the reasons why Lizzie gave up. Scared of the awful truth that surrounds her, Hope will fight to save her sister and fight to flee the evil that traps her. With only one friend and a mother who turns tricks for a living life is about to change from worse to nightmarish.

Haunting Quote

I am old with living.
So much older than almost thirteen.

Pg. 38 Ch. 18 

Review

Its always tricky with verse writing, sometimes the story works, sometimes its brilliant (Chasing Brooklyn) and sometimes it doesn't connect to the reader. In the beginning of Glimpse I was wondering if I could connect to the story because the verse prose was so detached. Basically each page is a chapter told through the young voice of Hope and not until chapter 24 did Glimpse hit me like a ton of bricks and then slowly break my heart. I lost all knowledge of the verse setting and fell into Hope's story diving deep.

Hope is a twelve year old girl living with her mother and older sister. On the morning of Lizzie's attempted suicide everything in Hope's life changes. Left alone with her mother and slowly piecing together the events in Lizzie's past, Hope walks us through her own past. As readers we see the environment she's being raised in and slowly the pages leak out just what type of person her mother really is. For me as the reader this was the hardest part, as a parent myself I could not understand the hateful things she would say to her daughters. In the beginning I thought she was truly desperate, a woman so lost by the death of her husband, a woman so tormented by grief and trapped by her sadness, that she would trade her brokenness for evil.Unfortunately this is not a woman who has been tainted by grief, but a woman who is the lowest of the low, the kind of parent who makes your skin crawl and your stomach turn because you want to hate her and you want to see justice come for her.

Glimpse is a very beautifully written yet haunting book, although marketed to teens, I think the more mature teen will be able to handle the content and depth of the story. A very difficult subject to read about but not overly graphic in details to the reader who may find this uncomfortable. 

Rating

Glimpse contains mature content including drinking, prostitution, suicide and child abuse. A very hard reality to look into and may disturb some readers. Suitable for older teens and adults.

3.5/5 -YA, Coming of Age, Abuse
Copy provided by Around theWorld Tours