Release Date: January 11, 2011
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 256
Received: Library
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars
Goodreads Page
There are NO spoilers in this review!
You can read this review even if you haven't read the previous books in the series.
Summary
From Goodreads:
Sarah Vida has given up everything for love. From a legendary family of vampire-hunting witches, Sarah was raised to never trust a vampire, to never let her guard down, and to avoid all tricky attachments of the heart. But now Sarah IS a vampire—changed by the boy she thought she loved. Her family has forsaken her, and Sarah herself is disgusted by her appetite for blood.
Aida Vida is Sarah's older sister, the good, reliable sibling who always does her family proud. But when Aida's mother insists that Sarah be found and killed, Aida is given the one assignment that she may not be able to carry out.
Taking place over just twenty-four hours, ALL JUST GLASS tells the story of a game-changing battle that will forever change the world of the Den of Shadows. And at its center is the story of two sisters who must choose between love and duty. Dark, fully-imagined, and hard to put down, ALL JUST GLASS will thrill Amelia's fans—old and new.
Review
This is the sequel to Shattered Mirror and book 7 in the Den of Shadows series, but DON’T STOP READING YET! I promise this review doesn’t have any spoilers for the previous books.
Shattered Mirror was published in 2001 when Amelia was a teenager, but you’d never guess her age based on her book. I devoured Shattered Mirror and have been singing its praises for years. Two hot vampire brothers—one good, one seductively bad—and the girl in the middle of the two (sound familiar?). Only in Shattered Mirror, the girl is a witch and vampire hunter, which adds in a whole level of delicious forbidden love and conflict.
The vampire and witch lore is so thorough I feel like that world could actually exist around me. Her characters were real and likable. I care about those people. I squeaked with joy when I heard there would be a sequel.
While ten years have passed in the real world, practically no time has passed between Shattered Mirror and All Just Glass. The events of this book take place over the course of a mere 24 hours. I thought this was gimmicky and unnecessary, adding nothing at all except mild annoyance. I suggest just ignoring the time stamps at the beginning of each chapter. You won’t miss anything.
All Just Glass features almost all of the main characters from the first book and throws in a few more. The cast is HUGE and I had a hard time keeping track of everyone. I could barely tell the difference between a bunch of characters, having to rely solely on superficial traits (that one’s the witch with vampire blood, that one’s the witch with psychic powers, etc).
Even worse, the characters I knew and loved from the first book had nothing in common with their versions in this book. Nikolas had such a strong and distinct personality in Shattered Mirror, but here he’s completely different and barely present. This was the biggest let down for me.
The other characters from the first book met the same fate. They all felt washed out and incomplete, relying solely on the development of the first book (which in many cases contradicted their actions in this second book). As the characters stand in this book, I don’t care at all about any of them and they all score a big whopping ZERO on my WWMCD Test.
The plot pacing felt uneven, jumping around with repeated promises of interesting events and then fizzling out. The tight plotting and steadily building pace of Amelia’s earlier books was absent here. Instead events seemed to meander around without coherent form or goal. I wanted to chuck the book across the room at the epically anticlimactic ending.
Making matters worse are all of the competing narrators. The book is written in the third person, but the focus shifts from character to character with little rhyme or reason. Some characters’ focuses are returned to again and again, while others only have one or two scenes (scenes, not even whole chapters). This felt sloppy and convoluted, especially since most of the characters all sounded the same.
Secrets were revealed for many characters, presumably to create depth and “shades of gray.” I ended up disliking them even more. I also felt like this added confusion because none of their secrets are revealed coherently. Ever run text through a translator and eventually you get the gist of what was written but the details are missing and you’re left with a jumble of broken English? That’s what this felt like to me.
Whatever tension there might have been was completely killed for me after numerous letdowns and the realization that even my memories of these characters couldn’t make me care about what happened to them now.
Read Shattered Mirror! And, really, all of the first four books in the series. Each ends as a standalone, so you can pick one up and not have to worry about reading a whole series or dealing with loose ends. I’m very disappointed with All Just Glass, especially since I know the author is capable of much better.
But let me just gush about Shattered Mirror for a minute
Shattered Mirror was published in 2001 when Amelia was a teenager, but you’d never guess her age based on her book. I devoured Shattered Mirror and have been singing its praises for years. Two hot vampire brothers—one good, one seductively bad—and the girl in the middle of the two (sound familiar?). Only in Shattered Mirror, the girl is a witch and vampire hunter, which adds in a whole level of delicious forbidden love and conflict.
The vampire and witch lore is so thorough I feel like that world could actually exist around me. Her characters were real and likable. I care about those people. I squeaked with joy when I heard there would be a sequel.
Time Gone By
While ten years have passed in the real world, practically no time has passed between Shattered Mirror and All Just Glass. The events of this book take place over the course of a mere 24 hours. I thought this was gimmicky and unnecessary, adding nothing at all except mild annoyance. I suggest just ignoring the time stamps at the beginning of each chapter. You won’t miss anything.
Who the heck are these people?!
All Just Glass features almost all of the main characters from the first book and throws in a few more. The cast is HUGE and I had a hard time keeping track of everyone. I could barely tell the difference between a bunch of characters, having to rely solely on superficial traits (that one’s the witch with vampire blood, that one’s the witch with psychic powers, etc).
Even worse, the characters I knew and loved from the first book had nothing in common with their versions in this book. Nikolas had such a strong and distinct personality in Shattered Mirror, but here he’s completely different and barely present. This was the biggest let down for me.
The other characters from the first book met the same fate. They all felt washed out and incomplete, relying solely on the development of the first book (which in many cases contradicted their actions in this second book). As the characters stand in this book, I don’t care at all about any of them and they all score a big whopping ZERO on my WWMCD Test.
Where am I? Who am I?
The plot pacing felt uneven, jumping around with repeated promises of interesting events and then fizzling out. The tight plotting and steadily building pace of Amelia’s earlier books was absent here. Instead events seemed to meander around without coherent form or goal. I wanted to chuck the book across the room at the epically anticlimactic ending.
Making matters worse are all of the competing narrators. The book is written in the third person, but the focus shifts from character to character with little rhyme or reason. Some characters’ focuses are returned to again and again, while others only have one or two scenes (scenes, not even whole chapters). This felt sloppy and convoluted, especially since most of the characters all sounded the same.
Secrets were revealed for many characters, presumably to create depth and “shades of gray.” I ended up disliking them even more. I also felt like this added confusion because none of their secrets are revealed coherently. Ever run text through a translator and eventually you get the gist of what was written but the details are missing and you’re left with a jumble of broken English? That’s what this felt like to me.
Whatever tension there might have been was completely killed for me after numerous letdowns and the realization that even my memories of these characters couldn’t make me care about what happened to them now.
Bottom line
Read Shattered Mirror! And, really, all of the first four books in the series. Each ends as a standalone, so you can pick one up and not have to worry about reading a whole series or dealing with loose ends. I’m very disappointed with All Just Glass, especially since I know the author is capable of much better.
Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key
This book satisfies the following challenges:
Other books in the series--Each can be read as a standalone! (click on their covers to go to Goodreads): 
