The Glass Castle - Trisha Priebe

Umm WHAT.

I LOVED this book.
I thought I wouldn't enjoy it all that much, especially since I discovered that it is listed as "Christian" literature. I AM a Christian, but I usually steer clear of those books because... I don't know. I guess they're not bad, but they're just not something I seek out. And I would not call this Christian literature. It mentions God about as much as a lot of other YA books. Fantasy, contemporary, everything. It's really basically just a middle grade fantasy.

So this book is about a girl named Avery. She's in the forest with her little brother when she gets KIDNAPPED and taken to a castle, where tons of other 13 year old children secretly reside. They are not allowed to be seen by adults - they don't even know that the kids are in the castle at all. But there's this whole royal court kind of situation going on within the children's side of the castle.

It was an incredibly unique idea and it really drew me in fast. If you've read pretty much any of my reviews, you probably know that I have a weakness for princess books. This isn't necessarily a princess book, but it's set in a castle. Apparently that's all I need. I was hooked.

THE GLASS CASTLE was a super quick read for me because it's middle grade and the language is fairly simple, but not exactly dumbed down. It wasn't the world's absolute greatest writing, but the plot was so intriguing to me and the simplicity of the writing didn't distract from the story at all, which is really what matters.

I felt like the main character, Avery, was pretty well developed, but most of the others weren't. Luckily this is NOT a standalone, so we'll be getting more later! Hopefully that will give the author another chance to show us who the characters really are. However, I think in this book it kind of adds to the overall mystery.

Also, the chapters are short. I LOVE LOVE LOVE short chapters. It makes it easy to stop... but also easy to read "just one more." I found it hard to put the book down. It just has this addictive quality that makes you want to devour it in a couple sittings, which is what I did.

Overall, I loved the story, enjoyed the characters, and couldn't stop reading it. Definitely one of my favorite middle grade books EVER. And the ending was EXCELLENT. So excited for the next one!

* I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.