Review Hallowed Cynthia Hand
For months Clara Gardner trained to face the fire from her visions, but she wasn’t prepared for the choice she had to make that day. And in the aftermath, she discovered that nothing about being part angel is as straightforward as she thought.
Now, torn between her love for Tucker and her complicated feelings about the roles she and Christian seem destined to play in a world that is both dangerous and beautiful, Clara struggles with a shocking revelation: Someone she loves will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.
I LOVED how this started directly after Unearthly ended. I loved how it was literally Immediate. It throws you right back into the novel, right back into Clara and her set of problems and issues that lead her to the fire, to trying to find out who she is supposed to save and who she is supposed to end up being with. Clara obviously as we know from Unearthly saves Tucker and a s a result of her revealing she is an Angel Blood Christian develops a slightly unhealthy obsession with her, convinced she is his purpose on this world and that she is the reason he is supposed to be on Earth.
Clara and Angel meanwhile along with Clara’s brother and some others, decide to create an angel born group, which starts deciphering Clara’s latest vision dream. We get a lot of the blackwings, in Hallowed, far more than we saw them in Unearthly which adds some tension to what would otherwise be a proto-typical teen angsty love triangle romance, with no soul.
But Hallowed is different and its only due to one thing, Hands amazing ability to write complete characters. Complete and soulful characters who jumped off the page fully formed with their liveliness and their humanity. Flaws, Nothing defines a great character more than their flaws and their complete inability to comprehend and comment on everything. There is nothing i hate more than a character who seems to know everything even as they are supposedly investigating and finding it out. Its weird. I love how clueless Clara was, and how she was snarky, sarcastic, even nasty especially to her mother who concealed her bloodlines form her for years and caused a significant percentage of Clara’s problems simply by not explaining who she was.
Hallowed is full of answers for the many many questions we had at the end of Unearthly, we get some clarity on Clara’s mother and her brothers situation, how Clara came about how she was able to Glory and fight the Darkwings. We also get some clarity on who Christian is and why he believes Clara is his savior, or rather his saving grace, but there is this overwhelming presence of sorrow and this cloud hanging over this story. Clara simply doesn’t get a break, everytime she turns around there is something else and she doesn’t handle it particularly well which is one of the reasons I love this story because Clara is fautly, she has many many flaws and problems and doesn’t always handle them in the best possible ways. Even as she is angelic and unearthly, she is human and that is what makes this such a great story.
Overall Rating: A-
