The Beginning, by Sophia Lowell

Title: The Beginning (Glee, #1)
Author: Sophia Lowell
Publisher: Poppy
Release: August 5, 2010
Source: Bought

Calling all Gleeks! Get more of your favorite characters in this official Glee prequel! All great performances deserve a warm-up! Enroll early at McKinley High--before New Directions was even a glimmer in Mr. Schuester's eye. When did Rachel first decide Finn was more than just a jock? When did Puck and Quinn start their secret romance? And how did the fledgling Glee Club function without a fearless leader? Hint: It wasn't exactly a perfect melody. Break out the gold stars and refill the slushies: It's time to find out what happened to all your favorite characters before the show-mance began.

I’ve known I wanted to read this book since I first found out about it. Glee is my favorite series and anything that has to do with Glee is something I must check out. Now, I haven’t read any T.V. to book or even movie to book adaptations, so I didn’t know what to expect. After seeing some pretty bad reviews, I didn’t know if I was going to like it much. Regardless of my hesitation, I started reading it the day I got it. And boy, am I glad I did.

You get to see all of your favorite characters in this book. The author didn’t exactly nail all of the characters’ personalities, but she did a good job and I loved reading about my favorite Glee characters. If you haven’t seen Glee, you probably won’t get the humor in this book, but if you are a true Gleek like me, you will love it.

The writing style wasn’t my favorite, but it was good regardless. This was a very light read and I was never confused and always had a clear idea of what was going on. The POV will randomly change from character to character from one sentence to the next, but it flows really well. The whole book is third-person narrative so it wasn’t that big of an issue.

It was so cool to see McKinley High before Mr. Schuster got a hold of the glee club. Did you know that the original members of the glee club were Artie, Mercedes, Tina, and Artie. The others didn’t come in until much later. It was really interesting to see how New Directions got it’s start and how the characters were before the joined the club.

This book is a must read for Gleeks of all ages. But if you haven’t seen the show, I recommend watching it first because you will not enjoy this book very much if you are not familiar with the characters and plot. This book brings in all the awesome characters from Glee into a great new book that is well-written and has a great story that we have never seen before.