Author: Myra McEntire
Published: June 2011
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Series: Hourglass #1
400 pages (hardcover)
When this book was first released, I read several glowing reviews about it. The premise of it sounded very interesting too — I’m a complete sucker for time-travel or time-manipulation related plots. Anyway, I didn’t get around to reading it until now. I just finished it and I feel … underwhelmed.
The story is about a teen girl named Emerson. Her parents are dead; she lives with her much older brother, Thomas, and his wife, Dru. Emerson has a problem in that she is able to see “rips” — ghost-like projections of people from the past. This has led to many people believing she is simply crazy, even though she is not. Her loving brother wants to help Emerson and has sought help from all kinds of people, from professionals to the supernatural to downright shady Internet advertisements. His latest hiree is a man named Michael, who is from a company called the Hourglass and is very interested in Emerson’s case.
Michael’s different from all the “help” Em has had in the past. He helps reveal that her “condition” is actually the effects of a special time-traveling gene she has. The Hourglass is a special place for people who have all sorts of special abilities. Em finally feels like she has found where she belongs, but not before long, she realizes that there is a plot to steal all of the Hourglass’ secrets, and it is crucial that she puts a stop to it.
There’s clearly some ideas that, to me, are inspirations from other sources. The time-traveling gene reminds me greatly of The Time Traveler’s Wife and the Hourglass reminded me of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, from X-Men. Then, there are some ideas that, to me, are trends in YA that are overflowing the market, like ‘families’ of people with special powers (Twilight, Beautiful Creatures) and love triangles (like every single YA title out there …). It was an interesting blend, to say the least, but in the end, it just didn’t work out for me. This book may be advertised as some sort of science fiction, time travel book, but the truth is, it’s just another poorly envisioned teen romance novel. It’s like 30% science fiction, 70% cheap romance.
A significant portion of the book was dedicated to describing how perfect, and handsome Michael is. Of course, he has abs. He’s not an athlete or a body builder or anything, there is no mention of him being particularly active in any way, but he just happens to have abs and well defined muscles all over his body. There were some rather serious scenes Emerson was in, where despite the gravity of the situation, she still manages to somehow steer the narrative back to Michael and his damn abs. This only emphasized the lack of chemistry they had. It was just a whole lot of, “I think you’re beautiful” from both sides, and by the end, they were both exclaiming to the world how they can’t live without one another, essentially.
The actual plot of the story isn’t that bad. Like I said, I may be bias because I love stories that involve time travel, but I did like the concept of Emerson being able to see ghostly projections of dead people, and I did like how the story turned into a ‘I must travel to the past to change the future!’ It sounds a bit typical, but I do like stories like that. But like I said, the science fiction part of the story clearly took a backseat to the TruLuv between Em and Michael, and this is evident by the “rules” of time travel unraveling near the end of the plot. I was told only people with the gene can travel; suddenly we find out you don’t really need the gene. I was told time travel must adhere to the Novikov Principle; at the end, the villain is all, “Pfft, I changed things in the past and look, no one knew!” So while the plot had a great premise and chugged along merrily for the most part (never minding the fact that, still, a majority of it was bad romance), my enthusiasm for it dipped and plateaued by the end.
As for the actual characters, Em was very hard to like. She was just such an angry person, and you’re in her head all the time (it is in first person), so it was a bit annoying. However, I do grant her a few points for acknowledging she’s an angry person. I realize she has some legit issues, but she is a little hard to feel sympathy for. Strangely enough, Em apparently has a black belt in martial arts. Anybody who’s done martial arts before knows that it’s not just about “kicking ass” — they actually emphasize and teach self-control, discipline and how to control your emotions. Which Em violated, all of them. In all honesty, I didn’t expect the author to know this, but it stood out to me because, well, I’ve done martial arts before. I’m pretty sure the whole black belt thing was just added in for the cool factor.
Anyway, this book was two stars for me — it was okay, but it wasn’t great. I’d suggest borrowing it from a library if you are interested in reading it.
My Rating: 2/5
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