Hourglass

Title: Hourglass

Author: Myra McEntire

Pages: 390

Pub: Egmont, 2011

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Paranormal,

Etc:

The Short of It

Emerson might finally work through oddities.

The Long of It

Emerson has had it rough.  Her parents died in a tragic accident that should have killed her; she lost her scholarship to a private boarding school leaving her to live with her older brother (Thomas) and sister-in-law (Dru); she only has one true friend. And oh yeah, she sees dead people.  Well, they have to be really dead.  Like, AGES AGO dead.  Emerson lives in the South so it’s pretty much a constant.  Thomas & Dru know about this defect (?) and are constantly trying to find ways to assist her, which is how she meets Michael Weaver.  Michael claims to work for The Hourglass and guess what?  He sees dead people too.

The Thoughts about It

S’kay, I have to admit something first.  The ONLY reason why I purchased this book?  Um, yeah, the cover.  I knew that it was a paranormal YA of sorts, but didn’t read anything about the plot or characters.  Didn’t really care after seeing the cover.  Absolutely stunning.  I love how  the symmetry is off and the picture doesn’t really make sense with the title.  I seriously felt like Tyra Banks critiquing a model on ANTM – “the length of your legs and position of your arm makes me think “I want more”.  Definitely top model quality.”. (1)

Also, I was slightly intrigued by the idea of reading a book without having any background.  I hardly ever do that.(2)

Now, let me just say that I don’t know if I’ll be doing that again.  Hourglass wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t my thing.  But I can see how it would be other people’s thing.  It does after all merge science fiction with paranormal.  I think that there’s a market for this.  I mean, it’s UNIQUE and hasn’t really been done (much?)?

I’m just not a big fan of time travel.  I can’t manage to suspend my disbelief enough to go along with the story.  I definitely admit that I have little to compare this book to, but I kinda felt that the ‘scientific’ parts of time travel were handled well.  Perhaps some SF folks out there can correct me one way or another.  I don’t really play the game of ‘what if I chose this instead of this’ often, which is in essence the drive behind time travel right? And it’s not as though there aren’t parts of my experiences that I’d like to alter (3) or out of curiosity wonder about who I might have been if I went down a different decisive path, but that part of me isn’t more than a passing thought every now and again when I’m feeling nostalgic. I also don’t find it curious to think about things like: what if Hitler was never born or what if Columbus never found the United States.  *shrug* It happened. Gotta move on.

Emerson was a pretty all right character and so was Michael.  But mostly they were forgettable.  I’d have to say that I’m pretty ‘meh’ about Hourglass.  It hints at a series cuz the ending sorta reminded me of Austin Powers with Dr. Evil when he escapes and I kinda wanted to do the pinky move.  I doubt I’ll pick up the next in- Reviews will have to truly impress me.

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(1(1)  Am I the only one who watches America’s Next Top Model? Such junk food television!

(2(2) I can only think of one other time in which I’ve done that, and interestingly enough, I ordered the other book in the same batch.

(3(3)  But you know, I kinda dig who I am and where I’m at, blah blah blah.