The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

Synopsis: WINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 
Strange things are happening on the remote and snowbound archipelago of St. Hauda’s Land. Magical winged creatures flit around the icy bogland, albino animals hide themselves in the snow-glazed woods, and Ida Maclaird is slowly turning into glass. Ida is an outsider in these parts who has only visited the islands once before. Yet during that one fateful visit the glass transformation began to take hold, and now she has returned in search of a cure.

"The Girl with Glass Feet "is a love story to treasure, “crafted with elegance and swept by passionate magic and the yearning for connection. A rare pleasure” (Katherine Dunn, author of "Geek Love").

My thoughts: Meh. Ali Shaw gives us a romantic/fantastic novel, but there are a few (many) things that I thought were so unnecessary. For an instance, small bull-winged moths?!?! WHAT?!?! I mean, WHAT!?!?!?!

                The only thing that kept me going was the couple. Ida and Midas were really sweet, both trying to solve their shit. Their romance was so pure and simple, they gave each other support despite all things. Because of her, Midas found the strength he needed to get free from his Father’s shadow, and from him, Ida learned that maybe the more important things weren’t to base-jump or to dive in a lake, but to be together with the ones you loved, especially when you needed them most.

                Despite the fact that the Author is really gifted with describing scenarios – really, it was so detailed that astonished me – the book was a drag. I really considered not finishing at all – just to give you guys an idea.

                Also, all those chapters about their relatives and people around them – from an distant Henry Fuwa and his relation with Midas’s mother to Ida’s uncle feelings regarding her mom – for me were unnecessary. Ok, maybe one or two had a meaning because without them, a few things would be left behind without explanation, but not all of them.

                The book left a few unsolved things. For an instance, how did Ida got these “disease”? It couldn’t be like a cold, so how? And how to make it stop? Is there a cure at all? And what about those winged things? What’s the meaning? For me: NONE. The base of the whole story for me was to find a cure for her, but if you don’t know what in God’s name is it and how did you get it, how can you find a cure?

                I don’t know… this book didn’t catch me at all, and I’m kind of glad that it ended.

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