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This book continues the story of Clara, struggling with her purpose and her relationships. Despite the angelic elements to the story, it stands out as real as a mailbox in the noonday sun. Clara struggles with getting grounded for fooling around with her boyfriend, not being able to understand her moody and hormonal younger brother, having spats with her friends and her mom and having trouble finding her place and her path in life. These are things we all faced, especially as teenagers, but the author makes them somehow far more interesting by capturing the immediacy, the urgency of the issues that we all felt when they were consuming our own lives. Without spoilers, the process of Clara losing someone she loves was very believable- Ms. Hand must have lost someone close to her to be able to write with such clarity. It was partially the writing and partially knowing that experience must have informed the writing, that brought me to tears during this part.
The conflict of Clara's emotions between Christian and Tucker is realistic, though I don't like the way she handles herself in response to the conflict. And I felt like for the second half of the book she ignored Tucker, who is a solidly great character (finally, a YA hero who has a personality instead of just charisma and hotness), and didn't really give him a chance. The choice she made at the end was irritating and not totally supported by what had happened in the story up until then.
Of course, I can't complain too much because you have to be dissatisfied with the ending to the second book of a trilogy. Otherwise you wouldn't keep reading. And it sounds like Tucker missed the roll call for showing up in the third book, but I'm hoping that he makes his way in anyway, because Christian (all hotness and charisma, no character) could use the competition.
The conflict of Clara's emotions between Christian and Tucker is realistic, though I don't like the way she handles herself in response to the conflict. And I felt like for the second half of the book she ignored Tucker, who is a solidly great character (finally, a YA hero who has a personality instead of just charisma and hotness), and didn't really give him a chance. The choice she made at the end was irritating and not totally supported by what had happened in the story up until then.
Of course, I can't complain too much because you have to be dissatisfied with the ending to the second book of a trilogy. Otherwise you wouldn't keep reading. And it sounds like Tucker missed the roll call for showing up in the third book, but I'm hoping that he makes his way in anyway, because Christian (all hotness and charisma, no character) could use the competition.