Hallowed (Unearthly #2) - Cynthia Hand [Review]

This review contains spoilers.

Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

Title: Hallowed

Author: Cynthia Hand

Publisher:  HarperTeen

Series: Unearthly #2

Release Date: January 17th 2012

Pages: 403

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis:

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.

In this compelling sequel to Unearthly, Cynthia Hand captures the joy of first love, the anguish of loss, and the confusion of becoming who you are.

Review:

This is one of the few times I actually liked a sequel in a series of books.

In Unearthly we find out Clara is part-angel. She moves to Wyoming because that is where she will fulfill her 'angelic purpose', which is saving a boy from a fire. This boy turns out to be Christian, who is also part-angel. But in the end she saves Tucker, another boy she meets, and thus she defies her purpose. Hallowed follows up on this event.

Before I began this book, I feared it would turn out to be like too many books with a love triangle: cheesy and no story but the love triangle. Luckily I was wrong!

Where in most second books in trilogies nothing important happens, this books is full of new events that actually affect the story.

The book is mostly about Clara's new visions. She sees a cemetery and certain people are not there. At first she thinks it is Tucker's funeral, but later it turns out it is her Mom's. The whole part in the book of Clara's mom dying is very sad and I wished the writer would not have done this, I would have loved to know more about her past. We also meet Clara's dad in the book. He turns out to be a real angel, this turns out to mean Clara is much stronger than she initially thought. I liked that now her mom died, she still has some kind of parent figure to go to.

I missed Jeffrey (Clara's brother) his humor this book. I thought him really funny in the first book, but he was sort of depressed in Hallowed. Of course, that's not hard to understand with his mom dying, but some more humor in the books would have been nice. I did not really understand his purpose, but it seems he is growing darker and darker.

The bad guy in this book (the dark angel Samjeeza) seemed a lot less convincing than in the first book. When first he wanted to kill her, now he just turns up sometimes and talks a bit, nothing else. I had higher expectations for this, I had thought he would have had some sort of revenge planned.. Maybe in the next book?

And then of course: the love triangle.. What I liked about the love triangle is that Clara is not constantly thinking about who she should be with and changing her mind about it every minute. She really loves Tucker, but he will never understand her and her angel problems like Christian does. And of course she has the whole purpose thing, which seems to point to her ending up with Christian in the end, which she is fighting. I am not really 'Team' anyone here, but I guess in the next book a fight with the dark angels will begin and Christian will be a lot more helpful than Tucker there.. 

I would definitely recommend this book! It is a good sequel, which is rare. The book answers a lot of questions from the first book and does not get boring. I'm excited for the last book in this trilogy!

Stars: 4 out of 5