Review: Timepiece by Myra McEntire

Book: Timepiece
Series: Hourglass
Author: Myra McEntire
Release Date: June 12th 2012
Publisher: Egmont USA
Source: NetGalley
Pages: 336
My Rating: 2 stars

My only reaction to this book: meh.

I think I couldn't enjoy this book partly because I remember next to nothing from Hourglass and didn't have the time or patience to reread it again, and partly because I didn't much care for Kaleb's character.

Too many rules. There are way too many rules about time traveling, and I couldn't keep all of them straight. For the first half of the book, I was just wondering, Who's Dune? Who's Nathan (actually, I still am not too sure who Nathan is). What's duronium? When did Michael and Em get their rings? Who the hell is Poe? Too many characters, too much going on. Too much of everything, with the exception of an engaging plot. It's a cheap trick, I'm starting to think, to take away lives easily by changing time. It's redundant, and frankly, boring. The same problem can't keep popping up every ten pages; the point of a story is for the people to hurdle barriers and meet new ones. Also, the way McEntire tells the story wasn't particularly interesting, either. The "climax" at the end lasted about five pages, while there were about a couple hundred pages of Kaleb and Lily running around from place to place discovering new things in massive info dumps. Seriously, this is how the climax went down:

Kaleb: He has my girlfriend! I'll kill him!
Lily: Aahhh I'm scared.
Kaleb: He has my girlfriend! I can actually see it happening now! I'll kill him!
Jack: *evil laughter*
Kaleb: Ohmygod where did you come from! What do I do now!?
Lily: I was too stupid to lie before, but I am now because my boyfriend told me to!
Jack: *more evil laughter*
Teague: The answer to all your problems--me--is here!
Lily: *suddenly gets smart and strikes deal with Teague that Teague is too stupid to see through*
Kaleb: We're safe! But Em and Michael are gone :(
Em and Michael: We're here!
Everyone: Yaaaay!

If you do not have the reaction of "wtf" to my summary of the last part of this book, I beg you to explain it to me. Because I fail to understand what the big deal was, if everyone was just going to magically appear (not kidding, they really do). There is no thought-out resolution. Everyone. Just. Appears. And the cliffhanger? Come on. It's so soap opera-like that I cringed. Jack is a failure of a villain. I mean, "rotten to his core?" Come on. The explanation of why he was doing everything was rushed, so I came away going, okaaaaaaay, and I should care about this why?

Kaleb seemed to be a shortcut of explaining all the emotions of the characters so McEntire wouldn't have to actually describe them. Maybe if she'd bothered to write more according to how the others interacted with Kaleb instead of how Kaleb was feeling what they were feeling (mega-confusion, right?), I would've felt more connected to the story. I didn't like the main character of this story. Not at all. He is, of course, the reformed bad boy with a drinking problem, tats, and piercings all over the place, as well as an unhealthy libido that is what attracts him to Emerson's best friend, Lily, in the first place. He also is so full of rage and desperation that it blocks out anything interesting about him. Half the time, he's ranting about his anger and sadness, and the other half he's waxing poetic about Lily. In other words, he seems like your average teenage girl (minus the lusting after Lily thing).

Don't even get me started on their relationship. Three quarters of it was comprised of Kaleb talking about Lily's smell or how she looked. Their more emotional reasons for liking each other were painfully shallow. Just because a guy is desperate and self-destructive does not make him attractive! If I met a guy like Kaleb who tried to cop a feel when I was clearly uninterested, in addition to his constant rage over everything, I would scream and run. Really. So no points to Lily, even though she was clearly McEntire's attempt at a kickass female character. I totally rooted for her in the beginning, but when she started showing off that lacy camisole and touching Kaleb's face (lots of face-touching), I was out of there.

There's more I could say about this book, but that's it for now. I don't think I really like much about it, although I did enjoy the descriptions of the rips. I love the concept of time travel, especially when the characters go to different centuries or places, but and the series in general has none of that appeal. However, I will say that the characters aren't as stupid as some of the ones I've read. Which is why I gave the book 2 stars. I may also have been so confused by information overload and all the different places they were running to that I might not have even realized they were being stupid.

I think I've given up on this series, but that's no reason for you to! I'm sure if you've read Hourglass recently, this book will be much more enjoyable.

I do love this cover very much, despite the fact that it's very deceiving. It should show Kaleb punching through a door instead.

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