Review of Glaze by Kim Curran

Cover Rating: 5/5

Format: eBook (for review)
Genres: Dystopia, Technology, Romance,
Pages: 293
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: 05/2014
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter 
Amazon US/UK ¦ Goodreads

Petri Quinn is counting down the days till she turns 16 and can get on GLAZE – the ultimate social network that is bringing the whole world together into one global family. But when a peaceful government protest turns into a full-blown riot with Petri shouldering the blame, she’s handed a ban. Her life is over before it’s even started.

Desperate to be a part of the hooked-up society, Petri finds an underground hacker group and gets a black market chip fitted. But this chip has a problem: it has no filter and no off switch. Petri can see everything happening on GLAZE, all the time. Including things she was never meant to see.

As her life is plunged into danger, Petri is faced with a choice. Join GLAZE… or destroy it.

GLAZE is an interesting technology, developed in part by Petri's mother, Zizi and by her father figure, Max. All of the world is on it - at least, those over the age of 16. It reminds me a little of the technology in Google Glass, but this technology is directly implanted into the brain, because that's not creepy at all. Anyone not on it quickly feels left out - anyone on GLAZE isn't always with the world and are too busy sending other users on GLAZE messages and such, than interacting to each other by speaking.

You can easily see why, at 15, Petri feels left out. While she's 15, the rest of her class is 16 and are all on GLAZE. She joins a protest with her classmates to try and feel more included, makes a mistake and receives a five year ban from it. It feels like the end of the world for her and she will do whatever it takes to lift the ban and finally get on the technology that everyone's talking about.

I can relate to this. I'm 22, but I didn't get onto the internet until I was about 16, when everyone I knew was always on the internet, downloading songs from limewire and talking to each other via MSN. I did everything I could to finally get a computer and I haven't left the internet since, it's always been there. *internet cuddle*

The relationship between Petri and her mother was interesting. Petri is a test tube baby and is named after the Petri dish in which she was created. If that isn't a warning sing that this might not be the best mother I don't know what is. Her mother also insists that Petri calls her Zizi which was... more than a little annoying after a while. I liked Max better, in parts. He was a good father figure for Petri when she was younger. However, right from when I first met him I felt that there was something a little not right about him.

I did  have a few problems with the story, despite really enjoying it. I didn't understand how Zizi could just become all motherly after a major event, that made no sense to me. Some events seemed a little too easy to overcome also. And I did have a problem understanding the point of GLAZE, past sending instant messages, knowing the time instantly and seeing where your oranges came from. 

I really like Petri's friend, Kiara. I do wish her character was... not more fleshed out but had more story? I only saw her in a few places and found her story really interesting, it would have been nice to know more about her. I shall have to settle for hoping there might be a sequel after all from Kiara's perspective.

I did love the story overall though.The world felt new and different, in a sea of books that all feel the same after a while. I think it was set in London, which helped a lot towards the setting. It's a very fast paced book that kept me reading long after I planned to, I think I read it all in two sittings. I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a little change in Dystopia.