The Glass Castle by Trisha Priebe, Jerry B. Jenkins

The Glass Castle by Trisha Priebe, Jerry B. Jenkins ISBN-13: 9781634093897 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Shiloh Run Press Released: March 1, 2016

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The king is ill and growing old, so he's under pressure to marry and produce an heir to the throne. Yet, thirteen years ago, the king’s first wife gave birth to a son, and no one knows for sure what happened to him. For the wife-to-be, the solution is simple: dispose of the thirteen-year-old orphans in the kingdom.

Avery, Kate, Tuck, and Kendrick are among those kidnapped and brought to a hidden part of the castle. Are they prisoners or is this for their safety? Avery snoops around to discover what's going on. They also work to organize the children since they'll certainly die if they're discovered by the wrong adults.


My Review:
The book is primarily Avery's search for answers about what's going on. The normal book description unfortunately spoils most of the mystery.

The Glass Castle is a tween Christian adventure story for girls. It mixed things like canned goods, rifles, and "Jane Eyre" with daggers, castles, and cooking over fires. And I can see tween girls enjoying the story. Avery longs to belong but doesn't feel like she fits in. Plus she gets two marriage proposals from cute boys. There's no sexual overtones to the boy-girl interactions, just marriage proposals (or the intent to get them). Yes, at age thirteen.

As an adult, I just felt stressed when Avery kept doing things that she knew were dangerous, stupid, she might regret, and could get people killed. She lives "on the brink of ruining everything." Most of the danger was created by her own actions, but she suffers so little personally from it that she has no motive to change her approach to life. She's a tornado that the other kids have to run damage control on.

One of the kids acted as a chaplain and held Christian services that Avery attends, plus she reads the Bible. She applied some of what she heard to her decisions. There's no bad language. The book ended in the middle of a scene (though the children are not left in immediate danger).


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.