Shattering Glass

by Gail Giles

Book Overview

"Simon Glass was easy to hate. . . . I guess, really we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn't realize it until the day we killed him."
Fat, clumsy Simon Glass is a nerd, a loser who occupies the lowest rung on the high school social ladder. Everyone picks on him--until Rob Haynes shows up. Rob, a transfer student with charisma to spare, immediately becomes the undisputed leader of the senior class. And he has plans for...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250060001
• ISBN13: 9781250060006
• Release Date: January 2015
• Publisher: Square Fish
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.1"
• Age Range: 12 to 18 years
• Grade Range: Grade 7 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Shattering Glass, by Gail Giles

This book is about a group of four friends who decide to take a highschool geek, Simon Glass, under there wing and turn him into class favorite. Rob, the leader of the group moved to town a year ago and imediately became the most popular kid in school. The rest of the group follows him and does whatever he asks of them. The group gets Simon a whole new look and Simon begins to gain more popularity every day. But as this is happening the group begins to dislike him even more and more, untill in a climatic end jeliousy consumes Rob and his friends and Simon ends up dead. My favorite passage from the book was "Simon Glass was easy to hate....I guess, really we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn't realize it until the day we killed him." Because it was at the very begining and it came right out and said that. This kept me reading the whole book just to find out how it happend. I thought this book was very well written and really portrayed highschool how it is. I found it hard to put down once i started reading it. The characters were very well developed, and the plot was very good. I would reccomend this book to anyone in high school or older, because i think it is a very good book and there is a lesson to be learned by reading it.

Pure Drama. True high school....uh, not the murdering part

Teen books are usually misunderstood as "chick books". But actually, I liked this book, and I'm a guy (thank you). Shattering Glass is about a boy named Glass who is a nerd in the beggining, but in turn of events becomes one of the most popular kids in school thanks to a group of jocks. But unfortunately in the end, Glass is killed (THIS IS NOT A SPOILER!!!). And this book starts from the beggining, and tells us the story of what happened. I liked the book because it made me pay more attention to all the little parts of the story, like the school cliques and the social status's of the other characters. I also compared the characters to other kids at my school and tried to relate to them in all the situations. After reading the book I contemplated a lot of the situations these kids were in and how they approached them, and thought it wasn't the way it should of been done at first. But once I thought about it, I realized that their problems were approached the same way I would of done it. The truth was that the situation had no good decision, only a bad one, and a really bad one. These are the kind of scenarios that made the book so unique to me as a true depiction of highschool (without the killing of other students). There's so much more to the book than the murder mystery. Events leading up to the murder include a love story, lies, and A LOT of conflicts. The murder mystery is a totally separate part of the book. It is the resolution, because you already know from the summary the book gives you that your going to have a murder, it isn't the climax. The climax is the moments before the murder, where you discover all the secrets and the reason of why the murder happened. In the end you will have a change of opinion about the characters, and you will also discover who the characters are, and how important they are to the book (esp. the jocks). This should be a must read for all high school, and middle school students.

Simon's Road to Popularity

Life's not always fair, I think that we can all agree with that. Someone may do something totally wrong and not get in trouble for it, while you on the other hand get blamed for everything and do nothing. This is how Young Steward felt in Shattering Glass. Young and his friends make a huge mistake that they never intended on doing. This is an easy-to-read book that will keep you turning page after page, it's lesson is one that you will never forget.Young Steward is a part of Rob's posse. Rob Haynes moved to B'Vale their junior year, Young and himself became fast friends and stayed that way. Now it is their senior year and with assistance from their two buds, Coop and Bobster, they plan on transforming the class reject into Mr. Popularity. Simon Glass is overweight and a dork, constantly being bullied around by Lance, the used-to-be popular one, until Rob came along. While the gang helps Simon to become the stud of their senior class, Simon helps them along the way. However, through all of this helping and generosity, Young, Coop, Bobster, and Rob begin to hate Simon just as everyone else does. They vent their anger towards him one night during the homecoming dance in the equipment room. The outcome is horrific, and not planned at all.Shattering Glass is full of action, language, and has a twist of romance that will keep you turning pages until you reach the end. Life's not fair, no matter how many times we say it, it'll always be true, no matter how hard we wish, it'll always be true, no matter what... it will always be true. This story of how four boys totally wrecked their lives during their teen years is heartfelt and tragic, but contains that perfect life lesson. Life's not fair, but sometimes you just gotta deal with what you've been dealt.This book is wonderful for high school students who have that certain enemy that they wish weren't there. It's also a great book for adults to draw that life lesson from and to always remember. Enjoy!

WOW

Once I started reading Shattering Glass I could not put it down. The quotes at the beginning of each chapter put me on edge wondering what had gone seriously wrong in the relationships of these characters. I found all the characters very real. I think Shattering Glass will win many awards and is something that everyone should read.