House of Glass Hearts

They don’t talk about the past. The past is where Maera’s brother is, and where they banished all their family’s heartache and grief. When Maera’s grandfather dies his greenhouse, one that should be all the way on the other side of the world, appears in her backyard, it leaves her with a mystery that must be solved, one that all the answers lay in the past. With the help of a few friends, Maera ventures into the greenhouse in search of her brother, but what she finds is not what she expects, nor is it what she hoped for.

The story begins by just dumping the reader in, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it threw me off to have no idea what was going on. I didn’t find any of the characters interesting and the attraction between them felt odd, forced, and completely unnecessary. Maera’s mother is always conveniently out of the way and didn’t add anything to the story. I did really enjoy the different perspectives of WWII and learned a few things, but overall I didn’t care for the writing style and found myself skimming more often than not.