Review: Glow: The Potency (Glow #1) – Aubrey Hadley
I received a free ARC of the book in return for an honest review. Many thanks to Netgalley and to Ruby & Topaz Publishing for the opportunity.
This is Aubrey Hadley’s first published book. I was attracted initially by the plot-line of a sickness sweeping the earth. I don’t think I’m alone in looking for fiction that might hold a mirror to my own thoughts and feelings right now. Sometimes a fictional resolution can give us a spark of hope in the real world.
Harper is a 17 year old girl who lives with her older brother, younger sister and abusive mother. Though homeschooled she is intelligent with vast knowledge of science and astronomy. After seeing a glowing creature, and being held in quarantine for a strange sleeping sickness sweeping her neighbourhood, Harper is abducted by aliens. She is taken to their base where she must ally with other abductees whilst plotting how to get out, taking with her, an alien scientist who may know how to combat the sickness before humans are wiped out and all the abductees are permanently removed from earth.
Hadley’s descriptions alien culture, early in the book, are detailed and fascinating. For sci-fi fans who want to delve into visions of other worlds, this is exactly what you want. However, the longer the book goes on, the less polished it seems and the more it feels like a hurried attempt to just finish the plot. There are no love relationships in the book. A lack of romance in a book isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not everyone wants to read a story that revolves around a teen relationship. In fact Harper has the potential for development an asexual or non-binary character that could be really interesting. This though, felt more like a book devoid of strong emotion altogether. Harper’s appearance is changed early on but after an instant reaction she never seems bothered again. When she finally reaches her brother, he is in a terrible condition but again after an initial shock she doesn’t seem to care too much. The tension that should be building towards the end of the book, like Harper’s own emotions, is muted. To cap it all, the final twist didn’t make sense to me. To be honest, I felt like my interest level finally just fell through a plot hole in the book.
If you are looking for a YA romance, this book won’t interest you. However, if you are looking for an apocalyptic sci-fi story to while away the time, then you should give this book a go, and in a world where people really are dying every day from a suddenly threatening virus, this book might just speak to you.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
