Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

This is the second book in the Unearthly series.

I've reviewed the first book at this link: Unearthly.

After Clara failed her purpose that all angels have at the end of Unearthly, she doesn't really know what to do anymore.

She is dating a human boy named Tucker, is friends with another angel-blood Christian, and gets a strange vibe from her mom every so often after their encounter with the Black Wings.

When Clara starts to have dreams, she realizes that they are visions of the future, and might be another purpose for her since she failed the first one.

What bothers Clara is that she can't see Tucker in these dreams. But Christian is there and that makes her worried, especially because the Black Wings are coming back to get Clara and her mother.

Life is going as well as can be expected until Clara's friend Angela discovers that angels can only live til the age of 120... And someone very close to Clara just turned 120 a few weeks ago.

Now with the looming doom of losing a lost one and her conflicted feelings between Christian and Tucker, Clara is unsure what to do. Add to the fact that the Black Wing knows more about her history than Clara and is still coming after Clara and her mother, Clara is ready for a time-out.

And that's not even touching on the subject of where to go to college in the fall...

Who will Clara choose? Who is going to die that is close to Clara? And what is the mysterious secret that her mother has kept from her all of these years? Read Hallowed by Cynthia Hand to find out!

My Thoughts/Reflections
It's really great to be back into this series again, if only for a short time allowed in a single book.

I've always had a special place in my heart for one of the male characters (Tucker/Christian). I'm not going to say who because I want to express my love for the ending of this novel, and if I say who Clara choose, I'll ruin it for everyone else!

Clara definitely grew more into a mature adult during this novel. After what happened when she moved to Wyoming and the events that followed, she realized that not everything is set in stone and not everything is fair in life.

With losing a loved one, Clara realized that angels don't get to live forever and they need to live their life to the fullest. But that didn't make losing someone any easier.

Now I'm sorry that I took so long to read this novel! But even sadder? I have to wait until January 2013 for the third novel... Guess I'll just have to reread the first two novels in preparation :)

I would definitely recommend this novel to anyone in love with angel stories and a triangle love story. I would highly urge you to read the first novel, Unearthly, though, in order to understand this novel.

Unearthly (No spoilers!)

Have you read Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick? Or any other Fallen Angel book, such as Fallen by Lauren Kate? I just read Unearthly by Cynthia Hand and I could not put it down! I really loved the book, but I think what I liked the most about it was that the main character wasn't the human giving the story, but the angel (or part angel as it is in this story). This gave it a distinct uniqueness that was able to set it apart from Hush, Hush or Fallen.

Clara is a quarter angel so she has certain "powers" that angels have - not as strong, but still there to make her different from humans. She has golden hair that shines as bright as the sun when she's in glory (connecting with God), she has wings and can fly, and she is stronger, faster, and smarter than humans. It's tough being part angel because she can't be her true self around her friends; she always has to hold back on activities and make sure she doesn't stand out from everyone else, only sometimes she slips up and forgets, causing a lot of weird looks every once in awhile from her friends.

Because Clara is part angel, she also has a purpose - one thing that she has to do as the purpose of her angel life. She starts to get visions about a mysterious boy in a forest fire, so after doing some extensive research, Clara finds the location of the place (Wyoming) and once her angel family moves there, she finds the mysterious boy (Christian). After that, she just has to wait until fire season to save him. Easy, right? Nope.

Clara meets new people, dyes her amazingly gold hair orange (an attempt at red, but the hair just wouldn't cooperate), and she starts to act like a normal girl, not a part angel girl. Soon, she starts to forget that she even had a purpose for being in Wyoming...

I really loved this book and I wish I didn't have to wait until 2012 for the second book in this series. Just another book to add to my "To read in the future" list with all of the other series books!