Hourglass by Myra McEntire

 Title: Hourglass

                                                      Author: Myra McEntire

                                                      Pages: 390

                                                      Published: June 2011, by Egmont USA

                                                      Series: Hourglass #1

                                                      Genre: YA, time travelling, fiction, supernatural

                                                      Stars: 3.5/5 

One hour to rewrite the past . . . 

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 also 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?

The story is about a girl called Emerson, a seventeen year old, who sees and interacts with ghosts from the past or ‘ripples’. After being hospitalised for the better part of her years, she returns to Ivy Springs to live with her brother and sister-in-law.  Her brother, Thomas, suggests yet another consultant to try and help Emerson with her issues and after seeing Michael, the new consultant, she is instantly drawn and agrees to work with him. However, she learns not only does Michael share her gift too, but she also has other untapped abilities, such as time travelling.

My opinion about Emerson is that she is an okay character.....that’s just it. There’s nothing more I could say about her, other than that I did feel sorry for her when her parents had died on a ski trip that they were all on and soon afterwards she was hospitalised and pumped with numerous amounts of medicines that kept her like a vegetable. Aside from that, despite being a small, yet strong female, she was rather a dull female character. There wasn’t anything new or fresh about her and because of that my opinions about her are just going to have to be that she is an okay character. Likeable, but boring nonetheless.

I liked Michael at the beginning. He came across as being charming, smouldering, hot and a mysterious new kid on the block. However, as the story progressed he became almost too good to be true. I know this sounds weird, considering we are talking about a fiction book, where nearly everything is unreal. However, it made Michael a really unrealistic character. I also got annoyed at him when he tried being the hero in EVERYTHING. He even got on my nerves when he always switched his emotions towards Emerson from desire to stubbornness to just plain angry very quickly.

The relationship between Emerson and Michael began at first very sizzling and hot but it soon died down very quickly. It became just like any other YA relationship. However, I am going to admit that there were some very funny bits between the two characters.

In terms of the plot, I got a tad bit confused in the beginning but I guess that the author wanted the readers to be slightly bewildered until she revealed the fragments that were missing in the first chapter. The whole aspects with time travelling that also including some sci-fi aspects lacked coherence and substance and at times the descriptions seemed fuzzy. It seemed like Myra wanted to use/create some fancy words to explain the whole time travelling aspect. However, all it really achieved was make the book sound silly, too unrealistic or too technical.  I thought the powers that the other supernatural students had were really boring. I mean hardly any of the students' powers stood out.....how could they if the students themselves did not stand out! However, I did like the explanations about the ‘ripples’....but that’s about it. To be honest the whole plot was a bit of a mumbo-jumbo.

P.S after  reading some discussions about 'Timepiece' (the second book) I am a bit gutted that nothing else happens between Emerson and Kaleb (for those who have read 'Hourglass', you know what I am talking about)!

Notables quotes/passages:

"Kaleb was so pretty I was jealous. Pretty with ripped muscles and a tattoo of a red dragon covering most of his upper body. “Yes ” he said. “I cook.”
“Do you usually wear a wife beater and ” I pushed him back a little by his shoulder “an apron that says ‘Kiss the Cook’ while you’re doing it ”
He leaned so close to me my heart skipped a couple of beats. “I’ll wear it all the time if you’ll consider it."

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