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Ah, Evernight. No matter how much it tries, it always reminds me of a poor man's version of Vampire Academy. You know, the whole 'girl at a boarding school for vamps who falls for a stake wielding hot guy' thing. I hate comparing series; it's hard to write original YA nowadays, and it's near impossible to write a book without someone accusing you of stealing something from somebody else.
When I began reading Hourglass, I realised all of the actions took place away from the school. I was a little sceptical, but hopeful this would distance the two series from each other.

Once Bianca & Lucas get away from the vamp vigilantes (finally), I was looking forward to some more original material. If they weren't going to return to Evernight, surely something big and dramatic would have to happen to keep the story going, right? So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. And about three quarters of the way in, I accepted that in fact, nothing particularly big and exciting was going to happen. Until I got to the ending. I'm sure this was meant to make me gasp in shock and excitement, but my gasp was caused by entirely different emotions. All I could really think was, 'But Ms Gray, you were doing so well!' Because when I read those final lines, my thoughts immediately went to the ending of said similar series, and I felt disappointed. I think that Evernight has the potential to be, and often is, a pretty original series, and I feel bad when I compare it to other series, mostly VA. But if there's going to be so many parallels between the two, usually one is found to be better, which undermines the other.

Some people will probably disagree with me saying not much happens in Hourglass. Sure, revelations are made, particularly with Bianca & her heritage, and other stuff crops up along the way. But most of said stuff was pretty predictable, and I ended up playing a waiting game through most of the book, wondering when the characters were going to figure out things that were right under their noses.
Most of the middle of the book comprises of Bianca & Lucas drifting around, doing basically nothing. This down time seemed perfect for character development, something I've always felt is sorely lacking in Evernight. No matter how much the author tries, I've never felt connected to Bianca & Lucas, which is pretty unforgivable considering they're the main characters. The series is written in first person, yet Bianca still remains a somewhat vague figure in my mind. I'm not sure if it's just because they're two dimensional, or whether it all harks back to me reading the first book and only being told halfway through that Bianca was in fact a vamp. I found this pretty ridiculous, considering I was supposed to be in her head and she'd conveniently forgot to mention her species; this subsequently made me see her as quite dim, and the author as amateurish.
Since most of this series revolves around the Romeo & Juliet relationship between B & L, my inability to really care about them is a huge blow to my ability to get into the series. They act more like two immature teens with a silly infatuation than two people deeply in love, and this usually results in me feeling pretty unsympathetic when something goes awry for them.
Saying that, I felt like I understood the characters a little better after Hourglass, Lucas especially, but it was all too little too late.

I've heard Claudia Gray is writing a spin off series featuring the lovely Balthazar, who pops up briefly here to get tortured by Lucas's slap happy buddies. Despite my reservations about Evernight, I do quite like Balthazar - he seems more complex than others, and his sister issues are quite bizarre but interesting at the same time.
I'm hoping Claudia Gray won't do a number on him and turn him into a vapid pretty boy who is oblivious to the fact that his sister is totally insane, something that I suspect wouldn't be too hard to do, but I'll read it anyways.

Probably the most shocking thing in Hourglass was that B & L finally 'do it'. I say 'shocking' not because I have delicate sensibilities, more because after three books and more than enough moaning about restraint I'd just assumed it was going to be used as a crappy dramatic device to keep us reading (hello, Twilight). So I was pretty surprised Gray actually took the plunge, and applauded her development of the characters' relationship. However, after reading the ending, it became quite clear why this development had been made - something tells me Bianca & Lucas won't be indulging themselves any time soon in their present conditions... :L

I think I'll read the next book, if only to see how the hell Gray is going to sort out the mess the characters ended up in. But I'll be missing the excitement I had when I began Hourglass, and replacing it with a somewhat unhealthy dose of cynicism. Depressing, I know, but if this series doesn't clean up its act, I won't be reading it at all (: