Spy Glass

I know I love a book when minor quibbles with it drive me crazy. I love the world of Sitia and Ixia, and revisiting these characters is like catching up with dear friends. Familiar characters return and a few new ones made me fall in love with them, too. The large cast (but not Dune large) is juggled with finesse. I was worried about not remembering enough of book 2, but the author does a fine job of seeding reminders in the early chapters. My quibbles are with the final 1/4 of the book, which I found disturbing, even though I don't think of myself as squeamish. This section strained a bit under a number of plot complications, but to my relief everything seemed to be wrapped up with a satisfying conclusion. I thought the narration was fine.



Overall, after the first few hours, I couldn't bear to put Spy Glass down. I found the Glass trilogy to be time well spent. Especially recommended to lovers of fantasies with complex characters.

In book three, which I assume completes this series, Opal is pulled in twenty directions at once. No powers? Immune to magic? Still making glass...our heroine is a lost puppy at the beginning, suffering PTSD and trying to handle family politics of a wedding. She brings it around in the novel, finding a better path no matter what anyone thinks of it.

The beauty of her story this time, is that she does actually fail at things- there are no miracles for some of her failures. With no magic, she has to become clever!

Her character is more realistic than some heroes. She is conflicted, makes monsterous mistakes and pushes and pulls her hearts and others too. Her honesty makes her real to the reader and I found myself both cheering her on and smacking her upside the head in the same chapter.

Some characters in the novel I was grateful to have less of: Cade annoyed me with his "stay home with and be my wife." You KNOW Opal will never do that and he does too.
The Magicians appear less in the book than previous ones and their politics have a hint of current events about them here in America.

Yay and thank you Maria for bringing back Valek, my most beloved character in the series. He is true to himself and surprises us with his talents beyond spying.

The narrator is always a good one and she keeps the story moving.

It's a good listen and worth the time. Cheer Opal on, smack the Ipod off the shelf when she screws up, Opal needed to tell this tale.

I was a little disappointed in the book. I thought it was a little trite and rushed at the end. Not a bad listen though. The reader did an okay job, but there was very little difference between characters' voices. It made some of the conversations difficult to follow because it made it hard to tell who was talking to who.

I love Snyder's work, the three books before this series are amazing, and the reader is amazing, but this series was really bad in comparison.

It drives me nuts when two readers pronounce words and names differently it destroys the flow of the books. Van Dyck pronounces things completely different that the other reader of the prior series and the voices are all different. Valeck in the last series had an English accent in this one he has some weird American accent, very annoying. I understand that the books are about Opal, but the other characters already established in the prior series are read completely different. If there are going to be books about the same world with characters from the beginning, than the reader should be the same or should have at least listened to the prior series. Thats my frustration with the production, it was awful.

The story line was okay but again not even close to the Magic series from Snyder. I don't want to spoil it but Opal is a complete wimp. She is whining all the time and her choice in men is, to say the least, despicable. The message that is going out to young women to forgive a rapist and torturer and then fall in love with him is... beyond my ability to comment I'm so angry about it I cannot even articulate how wrong it is.

It is in bad form to commend any actions that were displayed by this character, major thumbs down for this series, and Snyder should be ashamed of herself for such character flaws. These books are supposed to empower women according to the publisher, they not only fall short with this series, but they show their blatant sexist views, bordering on misogynistic, not only towards everyday women, but especially bashing battered and abused women, again leaving the answer for these women to forgive their abuser and fall in love with them. Disgusting! Then, the underlying drug addiction, blanketed by blood magic addiction, and that addicts should stick together and only can be together is also ridiculous.

Spy Glass had plenty of new twist and characters, that it kept you captivated and entertained from start to finish.