By Amber McGee
Weekly Reader Columnist
Seeing how social attitudes change over the years is one of the most fascinating things. For example, during middle school it was extremely uncool for someone to have a toy that they still played with, still cherished. Now in high school there are days dedicated to bringing your favorite toy to school. Yet even with this 180 change in feelings there’s still one understood rule: loving your toy isn’t weird. However, if you fall in love with your toy and start to believe it’s a sentient being that needs to be freed from it’s plastic, wooden, or furry prison, then yeah, that’s pretty weird. Don’t do that.
This may sound like common sense to most but there’s always those select few who just never seem to have gotten the memo. Or they, like Nimira, heroine of Magic Under Glass, did get the memo, but decided to rip it up and do things their way.
Granted, Nimira hasn’t had many friends in her life. After leaving her country to find work she ends up in a dance hall, where with two other girls she dances and sings for pennies each day. It’s not the life she envisioned for herself, so when young, rich, and single Mr. Hollins offers her a job to sing with his automaton she’s eager to accept. So what if numerous other girls have run away from the job screaming that the automaton is haunted? Nimira is set on making the most out of her second chance, refusing to believe in any rumors or superstitions anyone else may have. On her very first day of practice she feels confident of herself–everything will be alright, everything will be great. Then no sooner than five seconds after he is wound up, the automaton speaks to her.
Magic Under Glass is clearly meant to be a fairy tale. There’s a fantasy but still somewhat modern setting, attempts at romantic tension, forbidden magics, and there’s even fairies, though you wouldn’t know it because they apparently look just like humans. Credit must be given to Dolamore for the intent she started this book with was original and had great potential. Even if the idea of falling in love with an automaton who has the spirit of a lost fairy prince inside of him sounds ridiculous, which frankly it does, had the story been executed well enough it could’ve worked.
Sadly it doesn’t. The novel is too short, for once this isn’t a good thing, and the characters fell flat onto their faces. Any tension that was meant to be there failed to make an impact. Instead of making readers care about Nimira and Hollins and the automaton and their troubles Dolamore simply makes them go “ok” and turn the page. Instant attraction “i love you with all my life” tropes are bad enough in every other young adult novel, but when one of the parties involved is wooden? And how are readers supposed to empathize with characters when they’re not given any insight into them? If by the end of your novel the audience is still unable to say what kind of personality your main characters had, that’s not good.
An abrupt ending makes all of this worse. It’s not a cliffhanger even, it just ends. There was more than enough space left to create more build up and intrigue for the ending, especially since the author published the sequel soon after this one. Yet none of it is there. Sequel planned or not, this isn’t a good way to end a book.
Magic Under Glass was a good try, but it didn’t impress me enough to want to go and read the sequel. By large it was a disappointment, but if falling in love with toys-that-aren’t-actually-toys-for-once and books that had great potential but failed are your thing, then this is most definitely the book for you. There was no magic here for me, and really I had the urge to bang my head on glass most of the time, but at least the cover’s cute.
