Review - Glimmer by Phoebe Kitanidis

Author - Phoebe Kitanidis
Publisher - Balzer + Bray
Release Date - April 17th, 2012, 352 Pages

What if you forgot your identity and had to rely on other people to tell you who you were?

And what if to discover your true self, you first had to unravel a mystery so big and terrifying you were not sure you’d survive solving it? 

When Marshall and Elyse wake up in each other’s arms with zero memory of how they got there or who they are, it’s the start of a long journey through their separate pasts and shared future. 

Terrified by their amnesia, the two make a pact to work together to find the answers that could jog their missing memories. As they piece together clues, they discover they’re in the idyllic mountain resort town of Summer Falls, where everyone seems mysteriously happy, but as Marshall and Elyse quickly learn, darkness lurks beneath the town’s perfect facade. Not only is the town haunted by sinister ghosts, but none of its living inhabitants retain bad memories of anything—not the death of Marshall’s mom, not the hidden shame in Elyse’s family, not even the day-to-day anguish of high school. 

Lonely in this world of happy zombies, Marsh and Elyse fall into an intense relationship...but the secrets they uncover could be the death of this growing love—and the death of everyone, and everything, they love in Summer Falls.

Have you ever woken up and had some memory loss and freaked over just something very small missing from your memory? Imagine waking up and not only knowing who you are, where you are, what your name is, where you live, anything…but most importantly who the person lying next to you is! Glimmer gripped me from the very beginning with its mystery and was I in for a ride.

From the synopsis we get a small preview of what you’ll be in store for. It mentions zombies but these aren’t the I-wanna-eat-your-brains-zombies that is just how the people in Summer Falls act…empty inside, zombie like. Throughout the novel it changes from girl – we know is Elyse – and dark-haired boy – we know as Marshall. I love that we got to see things from both of their perspectives because they each had their own agenda and past to unravel.

I loved the mystery behind this. I was constantly wondering what would happen next and was shocked on more than one occasion. Since waking up together the two of them have made a pact to stick next to each other to figure out what has happened to them, why they are missing their memories, and figure out how to get them back. The town that they live in is just hella creepy, people are happy all the time, there is never anything wrong with them, they are never in a bad mood…everyone has bad days right?! I loved that we get to see the characters change throughout with the more information that they find out about their past and themselves. If you’re looking for something that will grab your attention from the beginning, give you some great shockers and a creepy setting then this is the book.

-Shellie