Shatterglass (Circle Opens, Book 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

Tris is staying in Tharios so her mage teacher, Niko Goldeye can take place in a conference on wind scrying. Tris enjoys Tharios and the glassmakers that live there but she hates the mistreatment of the prathmuni, the lowest class who deals with death and garbage. One day she stumbles upon a glass mage named Keth who, from an experience involving being stuck by lightning, has had his glass magic contaminated by lightning magic. Because of this he can no longer fulfill his job as a journeymen glassmaker. Tris realizes that he is a mage right away but Keth won't believe it, at first. Suddenly, as one of the few lightning mages, Tris finds herself as Keth, a grown man's, new teacher.

Meanwhile a series is murders is taking place in Tharios. The city's entertainers, the yakedasi, are being killed and then displayed in public places. This greatly hurts the Tharian culture which places so much on purity. Tris and Keth accidentally realize that with Keth's lighting and glass ability, he can really help find the killer. Unfortunately in order for him to do this he not only needs to get his new found magic under control, but get rid of his fear of lighting. Can Tris and Keth find the killer before he kills someone close to them?

I absolutely loved this book! Once again Tamora Pierce does not disappoint. Tris and Keth's story is suspenseful and a tab shade darker than the other books in the series. The setting of Tharios is very new and different. It's such a city that considers themselves to be democratic, but only if your int he higher classes does your opinion count for anything. I would highly recommend this book. In fact, the Circle Opens quartet is my favorite series by Tamora Piece so far. It's a shame that we'll have to wait a couple more years until we receive another Circle book. Until then, I can't wait until her new Tortall book, Trickster's Choice, comes out this fall! I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did!

That said, I DIDN'T skim any of this book because I enjoy Ms. Pierce's writing so much. It is engaging and even when she chooses a potentially predictable plot, she infuses it with something all her own. I found myself reading this book all the time, even when I had other things-enjoyable things!-to do.

The character development in this book, particularly of Tris and Keth, is excellent, with compelling motivation presented in a way that involves the reader. Some of the more minor characters are not so multifaceted, but it is appropriate in a young adult novel of this length.

Like the other books in the quartet, this book delves right into murder and mayhem. I would direct most younger readers to start reading "The Song of the Lioness" quartet and move on to these later, because there are some darker parts in this series.

This particular book is set in a very interesting culture. The language and the setting seem to have their roots in ancient Greece, but with some interesting emphases. The class system is in full effect here. Tris and Keth, both foreigners, cannot understand the culture's obsession with spiritual and physical cleanliness, and consider most of it folly, but the author does a good job of presenting the other side of the story as well.

The main reason I didn't give this book five stars is that, at the end, I felt that there were still some significant mysteries to be cleared up. That is not to say that I have to have everything neatly tied up at the end of a book (indeed, that usually makes the book seem fake), but there were some fundamental questions that are never answered. (For instance, WHY does Keth's magic predict crimes? The question is brought up but never seriously addressed. Perhaps it's a subject for another book? Well, for the sake of the fans, I hope so.)

Despite this one complaint, I found the book fast moving, intriguing, and generally enjoyable. I'll be recommending this and Tamora Pierce's other novels to the patrons I work with, and of course continuing to read everything new she releases. Hope you enjoy the book as much as I did!

However, the parts of the book that are not character development are lacking. The teaching of magic is stretched a little thin, and the rare parts where magic is used in a large way fail to enchant the reader as well as the first quartet did. One aspect of the magic that should have been interesting is Tris learning new powers to scry on the wind, yet not only did this not add to the plot, it did little to captivate the reader. Perhaps this was only introduced so that the 2005 novel The Circle Reforged or the 2007 novel about Tris at Lightsbridge can have it in their plots.

For a fantasy novel to be successful, the plot and character development must work together with the magical elements. On the rare occasion when this happens, the genre is better than any other at portraying humans. Although Pierce has fallen short with Shatterglass, I was still drawn into the novel and read it in half a day. Altogether, it is not a brilliant book, but it is an enjoyable one.