[BOOK REVIEW] Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

Title:  Hallowed

Author: Cynthia Hand

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Year Published: 2012

Number of Pages: 403 pages

Date Read: 4/21/2013

Series: Unearthly #2

Publisher:  HarperTeen

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 15+ (Some Language)

“Hold on to the ones you love because you never when they will be gone.”

After reading Cynthia Hand’s fantastic book “Unearthly,” I just had to pick up the sequel to this book, “Hallowed” and oh man, was I blown away by this incredible story!  In this novel, Clara Gardner will experience both joy and pain that she had never experience before as she has to make tough choices that will change her life forever!  Well, she is part angel after all; how more complicated can her life be?

After Clara Gardner, who happens to be part angel, confronted the forest fire that invaded her visions in the first book, she thought that everything would be fine now that she saved Tucker’s life and meets up with Christian.  Unfortunately, Clara will soon realize that the forest fire was just the beginning of her problematic visions.  Even though Clara is happily dating Tucker Avery and she is becoming fast friends with Angela Zerbino and Christian Prescott, she will soon realize that she would have to make tough choices in her life that could possibly put her happiness in jeopardy.

Oh, and did I mention that someone Clara truly cares about will die and that Clara has to find some way to stop it from happening?

Wow…I am just so awestruck by how emotional and exciting this book really was!  Cynthia Hand’s writing is just as beautiful and heartwarming in this novel as it was in “Unearthly” and I often found myself really sympathizing with Clara’s predicament in either deciding to give up her purpose in order to have a happy life or give up the life she chooses to live in order to fulfill her purpose.  I really loved the supernatural themes being explored in this story, especially about the fact that Clara and her family are angels and that they have to serve a purpose given to them during their lives.  I also loved the way that Cynthia Hand weaved the angels’ purposes into the story by making the purposes collide with the characters’ personal lives and how the characters react to the purposes they must perform.  This is especially prevalent with Clara Gardner as she is constantly shown trying to fight her purpose in order to have the happy life that she desires and yet, knows that deep down, she will have to follow her purpose at some point of her life.  But probably the best part of this book was Clara’s relationship with Tucker Avery! I just loved Clara’s relationship with Tucker as she is almost always honest with him and it just made their relationship feel so real to me!  Tucker Avery is definitely one awesome hero of this story as he is always understanding of Clara’s feelings and even though he knows that Clara’s an angel, he still loves her anyway.  However, I also really loved Christian Prescott, as he gets more development in this book than in the first book as it shows that he cares about Clara, but respect her relationship with Tucker and would do anything to make her happy.  I liked the way that Cynthia Hand handled the love triangle between Christian, Clara and Tucker as it was not shown in a negative way where only one of the love interests is shown to be good-natured while the other love interest is shown to be not worthy of the main character.  To me, this love triangle was one of the few times I actually enjoyed a love triangle romance in a young adult novel since both Clara's love interests, Christian and Tucker, were extremely likable characters and I would not mind if Clara dated both of them (although I am more for Tucker any day)! I also loved the way that Cynthia Hand handled the sensitive subject matter about the death of a loved one as we see Clara trying to handle this situation with care and it was heartbreaking seeing Clara break down so much when her loved one is dying right before her eyes. 

I will not tell you who dies in this book, but let us just say that it is someone that we really care about.

The only problem with this book is that there is some language sprinkled throughout this book, although the language here is not as bad as some other young adult books.  Readers who do not like reading language in a book might want to skim over the language in this book.

Overall, “Hallowed” is honestly a brilliant novel that any fan of Cynthia Hand’s works will thoroughly enjoy!  Now, I am off to read the third book in this series, “Boundless” although I will probably have to check out “Radiant” first before I read the third book!

By the way… TEAM TUCKER ALL THE WAY!