Review: Infinityglass

Title: Infinityglass
Author: Myra McEntire
Publisher: Egmont USA
Release Date: August 6, 2013
Format: Purchased hardcover

The Hourglass is a secret organization focused on the study of manipulating time, and its members — many of them teenagers -­have uncanny abilities to make time work for them in mysterious ways. Inherent in these powers is a responsibility to take great care, because altering one small moment can have devastating consequences for the past, present, and future. But some time trav­elers are not exactly honorable, and sometimes unsavory deals must be struck to maintain order. 

With the Infinityglass (central to understanding and harnessing the time gene) at large, the hunt is on to find it before someone else does.
 
But the Hourglass has an advantage. Lily, who has the ability to locate anything lost, has determined that the Infinityglass isn’t an object. It’s a person. And the Hourglass must find him or her first. But where do you start searching for the very key to time when every second could be the last?—via Goodreads

Sometimes, books are more than just books.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the day I watched my first episode of Doctor Who* was also the day that Hourglass arrived in my mailbox.

Though those two things are thematically consistent with each other and it’s easy to see why a person who likes one likes the other, what is harder to explain is what those two things have come to mean to me.

I don’t want to be hyperbolic here, because there are things in life that are more important than a TV show and a book series, but on that day I felt like things came together for me and life said, “Here are your people. You can stop feeling so lonely now.”

With Infinityglass, the third and final (*sniff*) book in Myra McEntire’s Hourglass series, McEntire brings a whole slew of characters, plots, and timelines together in a way that is purposeful, thoughtful, and a whole lot of fun.

There’s suspense and drama and romantical times and so so so many nerd jokes, y’all. (And let me tell you, the nerd jokes are where it’s at.) I snorted so many times reading this book because of how funny it is, I can’t even tell you. At one point, I actually started clapping.

Clapping.

On the train.

In New York.

Which I promise is not even close to the most annoying thing someone was doing in my train car.

Though I’m sad to see this series end, McEntire went out with some serious style, and I’m stoked to find out what her next book will be. (Clearly it will come after she takes a very long, relaxing vacation where no computers or electronics of any sort are present.)

It doesn’t surprise me that this series is coming to a close in the same year that my Doctor is leaving. Life sometimes has a way of having your back, giving you exactly what you need, and then poetically reinforcing its decisions. In the Hourglass series, I was able to find an author whose voice and style gave me hope for my own writing, characters to embrace wholeheartedly and with a kind of intense care that even I, the girl who loves books more than food, found a bit startling, and a plot that made my heart go pitter-patter on many different levels. (Yes, one of those levels is named Kaleb.)

These are books that I will revisit time and again, and are three of the five things I told my boyfriend would be essential to grab if we ever have a fire in the apartment. (The other two are my purse, which is basically the TARDIS, and my mom’s engagement ring.)

For real.

So do yourself a favor. Go buy these books, set aside a weekend, read the hell out of them, and let yourself fall irrevocably in love with these characters.

*It was “Vincent and The Doctor.” I cried. A lot. And still do every. single. time.