Glitter

Starred review from August 22, 2016
The series opener from Pike (the Wings series) dazzles and enchants, blending Baroque-era sensibilities with futuristic realities. Danica Grayson, 17, lives in the 22nd-century country of Sonoman-Versailles, which consists of the French palace at Versailles. Now owned by a multinational conglomerate, the palace and its grounds act as the company’s headquarters and the last bastion of courtly life. It’s a place of contradictions, where robots handle mundane tasks, overseen by a frighteningly efficient AI, and the residents adopt the dress and social structure of a bygone age. Blackmailed into an engagement with the 19-year-old king, Danica is desperate to escape. The only way she can flee the king’s wrath and her mother’s tyranny is to become someone else, which requires money, so she turns to selling a powerful drug that’s infecting the streets of Paris. Mixed into cosmetics, it becomes wildly popular, but Danica’s downfall is as swift as it is gripping. Beautifully detailed scenes serve as the foundation for Danica’s ethical quandaries and illuminate the fantastical world in which she lives. Ages 14–up. Agent: Mandy Hubbard, Emerald City Literary.

In the 22rd century, major corporate executives and their families re-create Versailles, complete with their own King.Just under 100 years ago, Sonoma Inc. saved the world from starvation but demanded that France hand over its most treasured historical palace. Calling their establishment Sonoman-Versailles, its multicultural executives live there as if it were the Baroque era, but with bots to dress them in their period costumes and with the palace wired into a sophisticated computer system. Danica Grayson lives with her overbearing mother, who blackmails the King into naming Dani as his fiancee after the white 17-year-old sees him strangle a member of the court. Desperate to escape her fate, Dani strikes a deal with a drug dealer who promises her a new life for 5 million euros. To make the money, Dani works with him to sell the titular Glitter. The drug is so addicting that Dani can be sure of ever increasing profits from the courtiers. However, she must work with the dealer's assistant, a green-eyed man with Asian features to whom Dani feels a compulsive attraction. As the plot thickens, Dani strategizes an escape, but that must wait until the next book. Pike creates an intriguing and imaginative world that mixes the future and the past, with enough suspense to keep pages turning and enough forbidden romance and florid descriptions to satisfy genre conventions. Poufy gowns and corsets in a futuristic setting make for an interesting spin on a perennially popular genre. (Romantic thriller. 12-18) COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2016

Gr 9 Up-In this original dystopian story, the 18th-century court of Versailles is brought to life amid a technologically advanced society where corporations have surpassed governments in wealth and power. The eccentric founder of the Sonoman-Versailles Corporation purchased the palace of Versailles from the French government and created a company-based kingdom that is inspired by the baroque era of the kings Louis. Within this strange corporate kingdom is the naive Danica. She is the hapless teenage daughter of a family who live in the palace as members of the court. Danica's life is thrown into turmoil when her power-hungry mother forces her into an engagement with the abusive and ruthless king. In order to escape and change her identity, Danica must somehow raise an exorbitant amount of money in the six short months before her wedding day. In a desperate attempt to save herself, the protagonist turns to selling the extremely potent and highly addictive drug Glitter. Slowly, her well-laid plans unravel as she falls hopelessly in love with a drug dealer and her friends become her unknowing victims. This is a stunning, unique, and fast-paced read. While illicit drug use and sexual violence make this book better suited to mature readers, fans of dystopian tales will find it breathes new life into their favorite genre. VERDICT Give this one to readers who enjoyed Kiera Cass's "The Selection" series or Ally Condie's Matched, or anyone looking for a fresh dystopian novel.-Ellen Fitzgerald, White Oak Library District, Lockport, IL

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2016
Grades 9-12 It's the twenty-first century, but in Sonoman-Versailles, everyone behaves as though they're in eighteenth-century aristocratic France. There are differencesthe palace is staffed with robots, the king is also CEObut gossip rules, and when 17-year-old Danica witnesses the king commit a murder, her power-hungry mother brokers a deal: the king will marry Dani, elevating her from nobody to queen and saddling her with an unbearable future. Frantic, Dani attempts to buy herself passage to the modern world by selling makeup laced with Glitter, a highly addictive new drug. The stakes are certainly high, though Dani's judgment calls are murky; her decision to hook her entire society on powerful drugs without their knowledge or consent smacks of desperation, especially as she makes only a halfhearted attempt to spare her friends. The price for rashness, though, is higher, and a nail-biting cliff-hanger will leave readers craving a sequel. This multigenre novel adds in a touch of forbidden romance, a mother-daughter power struggle, and questions of moral relativism for a compellingly addictive read. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Pike penned the popular Wings series, and her books have a tendency to fly off shelves. This compulsively readable start to a new series surely won't be the exception.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)