It’s probably obvious but I really wanted to read this book mostly due to it’s cover. It’s so simple yet beautiful. I went into the reading of with very little idea of what was actually going to happen.
Though I did know it was about teenagers with special abilities, and that always makes me excited as well.
For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn’t there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents’ death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She’s tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.
So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson’s willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may change her past.
Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he’s around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should have happened?
My favourite thing about this book was the awesome one-liners. But, unfortunately, I didn’t jot any of them down while I was reading and now I can’t find any. But I remember laughing, and appreciating them all.
My other favourite thing about Hourglass was Emerson. She was such a smart, fun, sarcastic, main character. It was fun going on this crazy journey with her. She has all these horrible things in her past and in her present but she doesn’t let them get her down too much. She makes jokes and tries to stay cheerful and hopeful. Emerson was just the right character to go on this crazy, time-bending journey with.
Her relationship with her brother felt spot-on as well. You could tell he was caring, and worried about her, and stuck in this limbo between brother and father and not sure which role their relationship needed in each situation. And I’m so glad Dru was a nice loving role-model for Emerson. The mean “step-mother” (sister in-law in this case) character has been done enough. Their family situation was a nice breath of fresh air.
Oh, that reminds me, this book is a book for nerds. I mean, there’s plenty in it for non-nerds to enjoy as well. But with all the pop-culture references, the time travel theory, a slight resemblance to X-men, it’s a paradise for those of us who enjoy the nerdier things in life.
Now, I can’t be too specific here, but there was an awesome plot twist at the end that I just loved. It pulled Emerson’s past into the main plot and made her a part of the story in a way that I wasn’t expecting but absolutely loved.
OH! And the time travel was done to perfection. There were no moments where you had to stop and tell yourself not to think about because if you thought about it, it wouldn’t make sense. You know, like all of Terminator 2. The time travel moments in Hourglass were all planned out very well and all broken rules were taken into consideration. I love when time travel happens without the characters erasing their own existence (I”m still looking at you, Terminator 2) and your brain doesn’t feel broken at the end.