A review by andreana_k
Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

4.0

It takes a brave soul to publish a YA novel that contains a good half dozen pot shots at one of the most popular contemporary book series of its genre within its pages.
People who write YA paranormal love triangles probably shouldn't throw stones in my humble opinion. Yet stones were thrown. Thrown with string tied notes around them proclaiming someone else's book, characters and plot were rubbish. Kind of harsh Ms Hand, kind of harsh.
I mean twilight is rubbish, no argument, but is ripping on it within your YA novel, marketed to the same fanbase, the smartest move? Twilight has a HUGE fanbase. Huge. And I'd be a little wary of making Twenemies. Those twifans and twimoms scare the pooh out of me. These are the people who got like a million signatures in one day in a twitter petition because footface wasn't doing a DVD commentary on Breaking Dawn or something. I repeat, they scare the pooh out of me. So yeah, good luck with that.
Other than that this was a pretty good book, not as good as Unearthly, maybe because it moved in a direction I didn't like but still a good story. Some surprises at the end that I didn't see coming, just like in Unearthly. Cynthia Hand has a great knack for keeping those little plot bunnies well secret until she's ready to tell them.
I really enjoyed the backstory with Clara's mother and would love to read a prequel about her life, her relationship with Michael and Samjeeza and what she got up to in those 60 years between meeting Michael and marrying him.