The Glass Ceiling
Summary:
Darkness can hide in the brightest of places...
Pickaxes, grime, and watery oatmeal are all sixteen-year-old Heart has ever known. Growing up in the tunnels, the only breaks in her muscle-aching monotony are the numerous nights spent cramped in a metal box. Stupid runaway mouth. But when strange visions and a hidden map hint there’s more to life than she’s been led to believe — boys being one of them — only one thing weighs on her mind. Escape.
Yet freedom is a tease. Heart merely trades her small prison for a larger one — a transparent dome controlled by the Guardian, an aging leader bent on creating a genetically perfect race. Heart's birthmark on her shoulder? An abomination that carries a lifetime sentence of slavery for females.
Refusing to let a glass ceiling deter her, Heart searches for a way out of the dome. But unraveling the Guardian's secrets is a risky endeavor. Human skulls atop crude sticks serve as a warning: treason is punishable by death. When her new friends are captured, and escape is just an arm’s reach away, Heart must decide. Take the freedom she so desperately wants or save her friends’ lives (Summary and cover courtesy of goodreads.com)
Please note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review courtesy of YA Bound Book Tours.
Review:
This was a read that had an interesting premise, great story and yet I never quite got into the story. I think the book could easily be improved with some additional character development as I didn’t feel invested when dramatic events happened. Heart made a few questionable decisions that I think I would have understood better had I gotten to know her better. I also did not have a good sense of the passage of time so there were a few times where clearly a few days went by and I was caught off-guard.
The story itself was intriguing and it certainly kept me interested to finish the book. It almost felt like “Seed” meets dystopian Young Adult. I also enjoyed that the book was not the beginning of the series and the story was self-contained. It was nice for a change to know how it ended with only one read!
Warning: Contains violence and sexual descriptions.
Rating: 3 stars!
Who should read it? Someone looking for a self-contained quick read.