S. E. Grove

In 1891, in a world transformed by 1799's Great Disruption--when all of the continents were flung into different time periods--thirteen-year-old Sophia Tims and her friend Theo go in search of Sophia's uncle, Shadrack Elli, Boston's foremost cartologer, who has been kidnapped.

The Glass Sentence

Christine

March 25 2023 - scattered thoughts upon a fifth read:
- It has been far too long since I've reread this. Skipped a year rip
- It is abundantly clear that SE Grove is very much a historian in the way the chapter starters are written & in the general descriptors of this world - the heavy focus on culture. I love it. I genuinely think this was one of my 'foundational' books that drove me to want to study history lol it's just - cause and effect - the things we will do because of what we have done - this world's developed SO wildly because of the intermingling of time beyond time & it's super cool. Anthropology!! History!! I love liberal arts!! <-- girl who is Literally going to a liberal arts college 
- I desperately!! wish we could've gotten MORE of this world. Little things teased - mentioned - forgotten - tantalizingly there but also not. This is a world that I want to be in - this world of mismatched time and perilous exploration - of histories beyond linear time, where maps reign supreme and memories can be captured in perfect detail. And that's the thing - HOW DO YOU MAP MEMORIES? Shadrack and his maps - cloth, wood, glass, metal, water - Blanca and her Sandmen - HOW? In the next book we learn about sticky gemstones, but that doesn't really explain the transference of memories to these map materials and I WANT to KNOW. 
- Truly and seriously curious how the Marks came to be, too - what in the World. How is one born with metal bones or plant limbs. 
- There's also just - 40c Japan??? Hello!?!??? !!!! One of the fun things about this series is its ability to just throw cultures together into a mishmash of what could've been because it IS in here - the three great cities of the Baldlands, for example - but oh MAN there were some places I am wildly curious about that are never talked about. Ages are SO cool esp in the next books but there is just SO! MUCH!! 
- I think that, honestly, Sophia is a wonderful MC. This book is more not as character-focused, not really, and I'm fine with that because I enjoy the world and the intricacies so much (even if a lot of them were Not Explored). But Sophia's so - I don't know she's just so thirteen and yet so beyond her age like she's supposed to be at the same time. I like her! A lot! She has very 13 year old emotions and recklessness but is also so competent and determined. And as much as I am puzzled by the whole time thing in this world it's something chalked up to it being you know. Fantasy. and the Great Disruption. but I like her whole losing track of time thing through the series and the importance of such. She's a unique MC without being 'not like the other girls' - partially, I think, because there ARE simply no other girls. She's surrounded by those older than her - Dorothy was the only one around her age mentioned and she's not in Boston - which is probably not ideal but mildly fascinating to her character bc like Shadrack bro take a wild guess why she's so beyond her age ! Theo's the closest one in age and he's literally sixteen there's a massive gulf between thirteen and sixteen & also he's a guy & also she just met him (lmao). But ye I've realized I really like her POV. 
- On the note of characters, Theo. I LIKE him - he's understandable. He's a jerk at times but it makes sense and he Tries. Maybe I'm just overfamiliar with these stupid books & know how things go after this one but anyway that's what it seems like to me - he actually goes from being u know. Every man for himself to caring for Sophia & her companions & sticking by them. Anyway he definitely cares after when - well, when he comes back in Nochtland. He's cool. I like the S/T dynamic a lot from perfect strangers to unexpected traveling companions to saving each other and betrayal and trust and absolute insanity and Further Adventures (even if she kind of definitely has a slight crush on him but again 13 year olds are something else I was one myself once.)
- I kind of wish we had gotten some sort of scene w Shadrack & Veressa's reunion bc That's Wack hello lol imagine meeting your former best friend slash partner ?? after like fifteen years apart because of a bitter argument just bc his niece showed up and immediately brought insanity with her. 
- shout OUT to the pirates I've always loved them
- Using soils to date Ages - that was a neat nerd thing. I like it a lot. 
- OK ok ok. The self-fulfilling prophecy - I still thoroughly enjoy that trope despite the difficulties of such. BUT the question is - what?? I honestly think it's better off unexplained like it was - but there's that part of me that's still attempting to figure out what, exactly, HAPPENED there. The map - it was a thread of memories that wasn't perfect but still came to pass through Sophia - but it didn't detail the maps or the pause with Blanca nor did it have the bit where Sophia flees after Blanca stays - it isn't really a map of memories unless it is, just of something else that happened, once... in the past or in the future, fallen into Talisman's hands through the conjoining of Ages... but it had the Insignia Rule... it should stay unexplained, part of the mystery of the Great Disruption, but I am so SO curious about this self-fulfilling prophecy, especially the importance of the silver thread and Theo. 
- I am mildly just kind of sad about the Lachrima now. So many of them with the Southern Snows.. yo what happened to the Sandmen ??? we never find out. I'm a little mad. 
- I think that my particular genre is those books that border MG and YA... Keepers, Mapmakers, The Apothecary all fit into that confusing group, I think. It is not a thing that's like - good for marketing bc it's difficult to read w actual middle graders & doesn't have the YA tropes that make YA what it is but I like it. A lot - and this is the most Christine thing in the world but it's fun to reread because of the more in-depth worlds than MG tends to have while not being distracted by like, YA romance (which has its place but not in these books). But I might be genuinely losing my mind bc this series is def MG rather than YA yet it has elements that are kind of like. Hello why would a kid be reading this. I think it's kind of insane how we define things - speak of arbitrary but also necessary. This is my personal definition of this series, anyway. 
- anyway I am just generally pretty pleased with the books I read in 2018. That was a good year for books. I am excited to keep rereading these again because I am reminded of just how much I enjoy this world... truly incredible procrastination methods... there is way too much I need to get done in this next week and I am just going to read instead lol I really SHOULD do school but there are like five kids running around yelling over here currently. cool! I am not moving. 

--
2021 - bro i love this world more and more everytime i reread these. also theo is amazing 
ALSO IS THAT A SELF FULFILLING "PROPHECY" I SEE

Ay I forgot how much I liked this world

Maria

главный плюс истории - необычный концепт мира, разломанного по эпохам. но автор, на мой взгляд, не очень хорошо управляется с этой идеей. как в мире гарри поттера большую часть удовольствия приносит описание деталей быта волшебного мира, простой жизни, так и здесь была богатейшая почва. ну правда, когда половина американского континента живет в 19-ом веке, а вторая половина - в других временых эпохах (одна из которых на тысячу раз раньше, а вторая на тысячу лет позже), я лично хочу подробностей, каких-то предметов, обычаев, картинок повседневной жизни. а на деле это все описано просто как соседняя страна, в которой встречаются какие-то артефакты, которые с конкретными эпохами никак не связаны. даже обидно, если честно - такая классная идея и такая неудовлетворительная организация

еще автор, по-моему, не справился с загадками - их мало и они слабые, не page turners. и со второстепенными персонажами - они довольно плоские и неинтересные по сравнению с главной героиней. но читать все равно не скучно, просто немного обидно за всё

вторую часть почитаю, надеюсь, там произойдут какие-то изменения

Becky

This book was a strange one for me. I wasn't expecting it to be a children's book when I first picked it up, I think that is why it took me so many attempts to get into reading it, so the writing was different to what I was expecting. Once I had changed my expectations for what I would find in the book I found myself pleasantly surprised by the journey.

This book contains such an intriguing mystery that once I was fully introduced to I couldn't help but want to read more. This book did not grip me like so many before it, but it held me tight and would not let go so that the characters and their story were always on my mind contemplating the 'what next' for them.

I bought this book because of some stunning pictures of it online. I had only a vague understanding of what the book was about and did not care to find out more, I just knew I wanted a copy of this pretty tome on my shelf. That is probably another reason for it taking me so long to get reading this book, I bought it for it's looks not it's personality. Thankfully, this is one of those pretty books that still holds substance within it's pages.

* ?Wholly original and marvelous beyond compare.”?Kirkus Reviews, starred review Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World?a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods. Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself. Then Shadrack is kidnapped. And Sophia, who has rarely been outside of Boston, is the only one who can search for him. Together with Theo, a refugee from the West, she travels over rough terrain and uncharted ocean, encounters pirates and traders, and relies on a combination of Shadrack's maps, common sense, and her own slantwise powers of observation. But even as Sophia and Theo try to save Shadrack's life, they are in danger of losing their own. The Glass Sentence plunges readers into a time and place they will not want to leave, and introduces them to a heroine and hero they will take to their hearts.

soph

how do you not notice 3 days passing is the question

A New York Times Best Seller An Indiebound Best Seller A Kids' Next Top Ten Book A Summer/Fall 2014 Indies Introduce New Voices SelectionA Junior Library Guild Selection One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Summer Reads “Not since Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass have I seen such an original and compelling world built inside a book.”—Megan Whalen Turner, New York Times best-selling author of A Conspiracy of Kings She has only seen the world through maps. She had no idea they were so dangerous. Boston, 1891. Sophia Tims comes from a family of explorers and cartologers who, for generations, have been traveling and mapping the New World—a world changed by the Great Disruption of 1799, when all the continents were flung into different time periods. Eight years ago, her parents left her with her uncle Shadrack, the foremost cartologer in Boston, and went on an urgent mission. They never returned. Life with her brilliant, absent-minded, adored uncle has taught Sophia to take care of herself. Then Shadrack is kidnapped. And Sophia, who has rarely been outside of Boston, is the only one who can search for him. Together with Theo, a refugee from the West, she travels over rough terrain and uncharted ocean, encounters pirates and traders, and relies on a combination of Shadrack’s maps, common sense, and her own slantwise powers of observation. But even as Sophia and Theo try to save Shadrack’s life, they are in danger of losing their own. The Glass Sentence plunges readers into a time and place they will not want to leave, and introduces them to a heroine and hero they will take to their hearts. It is a remarkable debut. “I think The Glass Sentence is absolutely marvelous. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. The world-building is so convincing, the plot so fast-moving and often surprising, and the ideas behind the novel so completely original. I love this book.”—Nancy Farmer, National Book Award-winning author of The House of the Scorpion “I loved it! So imaginative!”—Nancy Pearl “An exuberantly imagined cascade of unexplored worlds, inscribed in prose and detail as exquisite as the ... maps young Sophia uses to navigate such unpredictable landscapes. A book like a pirate's treasure hoard for map lovers like me."—Elizabeth Wein, New York Times best-selling author of Code Name Verity “Brilliant in concept, breathtaking in scale and stellar in its worldbuilding; this is a world never before seen in fiction . . . Wholly original and marvelous beyond compare.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review “A thrilling, time-bending debut . . . It’s a cracking adventure, and Grove bolsters the action with commentary on xenophobia and government for hire, as well as a fascinating system of map magic.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Luisina Rivoira

I reread this in order to catch up before the release of The Crimson Skew and it was just as wonderful as the first time. I'm in love with this world!

This is my favorite book of 2015!!! The story's so original, with many twists and turns but still making sense all the time. The characters are funny and delightful, and you can't help but feel and root for them from page 1. I haven't had this much fun while reading a book in a long time. 100% recommend to everyone! Can't wait to get my hands on the sequel!
Also, MAPS!!!!

Dani C

Don't think I'm going to read the sequel. I can kinda see where it will go already. That said, I REALLY enjoyed this, didn't feel middle grade at all, and loved how it was fantasy mixed with historical fiction in the coolest way ever. The last 100 pages is the only reason this isn't a 5 star rating.

 Bruna Acioly Leão

Listened to the audiobook.
Enjoyable, but nothing special. Confusing at times, though I'm not sure if that's my fault for having a hard time concentrating on the audiobook.
But, that aside, there were some very unbelievable aspects. Of course, fantasy is going to have impossible things happening, but I don't think they were developed or explained enough in this book.