“Neither Here nor There, Neither Alive nor Dead.”
Synopsis From Book Jacket:
After escaping from Evernight Academy, the vampire boarding school where they met, Bianca and Lucas take refuge with Black Cross, a fanatical group of vampire hunters. Bianca must hide her supernatural heritage or risk certain death at its hands. But when Black Cross captures her friend — the vampire Balthazar — hiding is no longer an option.
Soon, Bianca and Lucas are on the run again, pursued not only by Black Cross, but by the powerful leaders of Evernight. Yet no matter how far they travel, Bianca can’t escape her destiny.
Bianca has always believed their love could survive anything… but can it survive what’s to come?
Personal Thoughts:
When I started a book I owe myself to finish it and that rules also applies in reading a series. That’s basically the reason why I am on the third book of Claudia Gray’s Evernight series.
The setting is more on the city where we see Black Cross hunters move from one to another for hideouts. We now learned more about the Black Cross organization. A few history, how they function as vampire hunters, their rules, routines and operations. It’s more clear that they are absolute on their views that all vampire are evil and they are willing to kill all vampires to protect the humanity.
The characters are finally now sinking to me. Bianca and Lucas are growing up and maturing. There are still stupid and compulsive decisions on Bianca’s part but at least somehow she shows improvement. And there are still room for her to grow up. On the other side, Lucas grows up faster than Bianca in this book. He did a great job ensuring Bianca’s safety. Compare to his actions in Stargazer he improves a lot. Vic and Ranulf are back too, which is one of the best thing in this book. They simply add touch of humour which lifts the occasionally gloomy plotline. Maybe if they got more part of the book, Hourglass is more entertaining.
As for the plot twist, it surprised me – the part of what happened to Bianca in the end. It’s not that I didn’t see it coming, I just didn’t want it that way. I think Gray could actually make something better than that. When I’m reading that part my first reaction was in denial. I even said to myself that maybe it’s just part of Bianca’s dream, but I knew better, the fonts are clearly saying me it’s all real. And I feel sorry for Bianca and Lucas for that turn of event. It’s just so lame to have it that way. As for Lucas being a vampire, that’s quite expected already too bad that it just didn’t complement much to Bianca’s ending. Unless the next book, Afterlife can make something out of it than pure melodramatic plot.
To wrap all this up, Hourglass is fast-paced and well written but nothing really went on outside of the relationship of Bianca and Lucas. Nothing much new is added that we haven’t already know or anticipated. Ms. Bethany’s motive is still unknown. Charity is still the mysterious cardboard villain. Black Cross is still unsettled. As a third book, it doesn’t add so much information to the series which lives everything to the final book, Afterlife.
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