CYBILS Award Speculative Fiction:

Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future

Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by AS King is one of those books that you see on the shelf and you think: I HAFTA read it, the cover is SO awesome!

When you do, you’ll be glad.

Glory O’Brien is spec fiction for people who don’t need flying grasshoppers, sexy vampires, or talking wolves. Not that there is ANYTHING wrong with those things. Glory O’Brien draws you into her realistic world and before you now it, you’re believing a weird kind of altered truth. So far as you’re concerned, maybe she CAN read people’s minds?

That’s not the only reason to love Glory O’Brien, though. She’s just a regular kid. A kid who lost a parent and somehow got lost in her grief. There isn’t a kid out there that can’t relate to loss, or mourning, or sadness, or lack of direction. Glory O’Brien is Everykid. She can’t understand why her bestie (and I use that term loosely) is interested in sex. She can’t figure out what makes people get up and function every day.  Until she finds a reason to figure things out. I’m being evasive on purpose because I don’t want to spoil the book.

I loved it. It makes me want to live in a commune. Well, in theory, anyway.  And makes me want to take up photography. And it makes me remember how awkward being a teen is and makes me remember how great it was to have just one good friend.

The only thing I didn’t love about this book is that there aren’t any diverse characters. Glory and Ellie live in middle of America Whitebread Pennsylvania which is not very diverse. But once I got past that very glaring error, I was hooked.

This isn’t your typical romance novel. It’s for girls with brains who want to use them. Wait I take that back; it IS a romance novel. Glory learns to love herself and her life.

And the life that she will have one day.

Which will be pretty darn cool.

Now about that commune…

Check out what the other CYBIL’S judges are saying!