Glimmer by Phoebe Kitanidis

Release Date: Out now!

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Pages: 352pgs

The Story

What if you forgot your identity and had to rely on other people to tell you who you are? And what if to discover your true self, you were not sure you'd survive solving it?

When Marshall and Elyse wake up in each other's arms with zero memory of how they got there or who they are, it's the start of a long journey through their separate pasts and shared future.

Terrified by their amnesia, the two make a pact to work together to find the answers that could job their missing memories. As they piece together clues, they discover they're in the idyllic mountain resort town of Summer Falls, where everyone seems mysteriously happy, but as Marshall and Elyse quickly learn, darkness lurks beneath the town's perfect facade. Not only is the town haunted by sinister ghosts, but none of its living inhabitants retain bad memories of anything - not the death of Marshall's mom, not the hidden shame in Elyse's family, not even the day-to-day anguish of high school.

Lonely in this world of happy zombies, Marsh and Elyse fall into an intense relationship . . . but the secrets they uncover could be the death of this growing love - and the death of everyone, and everything, they love in Summer Falls.

The Review

GLIMMER is a young adult story about two main characters, Elyse and Marshall, whom wake up naked in a bed together with so little memory of their everyday lives, their own identities and how they even ended up there in the first place. With one thing leading to another, in order to piece together their lives - not to mention their past memories - these two teens are forced to investigate themselves by roaming the streets, meeting strangers who seem familiar to them somehow, and try and live out their ordinary lives to regain what they have lost. But the question is: How did they lose their memories and how are these two teenagers's fate tied together? Is it just a mere coincidence or . . . is there something far more sinister that is responsible for their lost memories?

This book had immediately caught my interest when I first heard about it. I mean, the glossy cover is really beautiful and eery and all that, but the plot was what grabbed me because it sounded beyond amazing and it was something that also sounded original too. After all, two teenagers losing their memories? Talk about awesomeness! And then, having this mystery included and these two teenagers trying to get their memories back in this very unfamiliar place of a creeper town . . . I was totally sold on that alone! As much as I wanted a Stepford Wives storyline in a young adult book setting with zombie-like citizens, unfortunately this book was not at all what I expected. First off, I didn't realize ghosts would play a large part of the storyline. And secondly, the way this book had ended, I didn't see the end to play out anything like that! At all. Anyway, despite those small factors and while this book is so, so weird but in a so, so good sort of way weird, and since I love my mysteries and being on a casual trip (trust me this book will leave you really trippy hippy if you know what I mean), but I still managed to enjoy the book but not in the way I wanted to. Still . . . it was good.

The best part of the book for me was the two main characters in GLIMMER, Elyse and Marshall, and how the book chapters alternated between the two of them, back and forth. Not only do we get to know these two main characters together - as an awesome mystery duo - but we also have the opportunity to get to know them individually as your average people too and learn what's the deal with their loss of memory. It most certainly helped me figure out the puzzle with these two different perspectives. Now with me already being all for the alternative chapters with characters, I only like alternative POVs if they're written right and in this case I found that they were written at their best because it never failed in impressing me and while it took a little while for me to warm up to these two characters but, much like the storyline, I eventually did come to like them and it was because of the two different perspectives we read about and the book might not have delivered as well for me if it wasn't written in the way it was, you know?

Overall, even when I sometimes got confused with certain events that happened in the book and while it didn't exactly WOW me like one would expect from such an awesome storyline, however I still thoroughly enjoyed GLIMMER considering it's a standalone novel and being totally . . . weird. But hey, everyone loves some weirdness in their books, right? Since this is my first Phoebe Kitanidis novel, I'm happy to say it won't be the last. With GLIMMER best described as Stepford Wives meets something along the lines of Bourne Identity-minus-the-spy-slash-gun-action and more so The Ghost Whisperer, I can definitely see plenty of readers loving this book - even one that will make you trip and question absolutely EVERYTHING!

The Rating

4/5 stars