

Unfortunately not as good as I had hoped, nor as good as the other series attached to this one, the Study Series.
My reasoning for this is mainly based on the characters, when you have friends like these who needs enemies? I don't understand how she called any of these people her friends, and her love relationships were no better. All the relationships in this book were brittle and weak and made zero sense to me - maybe I'm missing a big chunk of Opal's story as I haven't yet finished the Study Series but I doubt it. She only had a few conversations with some of the people she labeled her friends - at least on 'screen' which is all I can relate to obviously. One girl was just plain her enemy, legit out to get her but no Opal wanted to be besties - which I'll admit is a weirdly admiring quirk but I'm also concerned about her brain, maybe she's dehydrated after all that time near the kilns. Others were just bitchy and nasty but she thought of them...somewhat fondly O.o And the 2 nice one'sshe had bitchy thoughts about!!
Her love interests were just plain nightmares. I'm fairly certain she was mainly attracted to them because of how they looked, at least that appeared to be what she was focused on during the book - of course after she managed to snag one, she decided she didn't want him any more and was mooning over the other one, but couldn't give up the current one cause otherwise she'd be alone. *bangs head on hard surface*
Opal just wasn't as good to read about either. I don't mind reading about less adventurous, brave girls, someone who's more meek and quite but there was just something so.... annoying about Opal. I'm pretty sure it was her constant back-stepping, self doubt and whining. All those things are fine in small doses but I'm fairly certain these were aspects of Opals main personality, which drove me a little bonkers. On occasional she would suddenly gather up her courage for all of 2 seconds then throw a pity party for herself before anything actually happened, this process would then Wash and repeat. Plus towards the end everyone referred to her as smart and waited on her to come up with the daring and brilliant plans on how to defeat the bad guys and their crappy situation, which is just plain ridiculous. The girl is lucky for sure! but her plans almost never work, and when they might she doesn't even bother to try them due to overwhelming fear. It was very frustrating.
(There's a perfect example in the last.... third? of the book I wanted to use but can't be bothered locating. This is mainly the gist: I should do this, quick while I have the chance otherwise I'll never escape! I know I've been in this situation a million times, oh but I'm scared, what if something bad happens!! but if I stay something bad will definitely happen.... maybe I should wait for a better opportunity, No! I said I would escape when I could! But I'm scared.... oops to late opportunity has passed me by. I'll definitely take the next one, I've finally learnt my lesson!
Of course she doesn't though -_-)
Otherwise a decent enough story, I had periods were I was very entertained and quite intrigue about what would come next. The powers, politics, etc were a blast and I loved the whole aspect of the glass work, no idea how accurate it is, but I enjoyed it.
I'll be reading the next I imagine, in theory Opal should be different, she was less annoying towards the end of this book at least, not by a lot but enough. And I really need to re-read and finish of the Study series as they constantly refer to it in this book.