Title: The Shadow HourAuthor: Melissa Grey
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: July 12, 2016
A battle has been won. But the war has only just begun.
Everything in Echo’s life changed in a blinding flash when she learned the startling truth: she is the firebird, the creature of light that is said to bring peace.
The firebird has come into the world, but it has not come alone. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and Echo can feel a great and terrible darkness rising in the distance. Cosmic forces threaten to tear the world apart.
Echo has already lost her home, her family, and her boyfriend. Now, as the firebird, her path is filled with even greater dangers than the ones she’s already overcome.
She knows the Dragon Prince will not fall without a fight.
Echo must decide: can she wield the power of her true nature—or will it prove too strong for her, and burn what’s left of her world to the ground?
Welcome to the shadow hour.
Well this took me a long time to get to and a long time to get through. Not through any fault of the book, mind you.
Herein lies the problem I encountered. I read The Girl at Midnight just after it released in April, 2015. It is now July, 2017. I can count on one hand the things I remembered about it before I picked up The Shadow Hour.
- The main character is named Echo.
- There are dragon people and bird people.
- Lots of random and strange SAT words.
- The bird people like sweets.
- Echo became the firebird (somehow??).
So yea. My memory of this book... it's basically completely gone. I remember loving it. But I have no idea what actually happened. Or who half the people were. So when I was thrown back into the world with Caius and Jasper and Dorian and Ivy... I had no clue who they were. I didn't even (still don't, actually) remember Rowan even existing in the first book. I think I finally got most of the important things figured out by the time I finished, but my perpetual confusion definitely contributed to my slow progress in the second book.
My confusion aside, I did end up enjoying this book, but not as much as I'd hoped. And I don't think it was my lack of memory of the first one that made it difficult for me to enjoy. Because while I did have trouble with some things, I was thrown back into it, and for some reason, I just couldn't fully immerse. I liked the writing in the first book, but I couldn't help but notice now that it seemed choppy. There were a lot of really short sentences and not so many longer ones to balance them. There were a lot of incomplete sentences. Like this.
And, I mean, that is super common in YA literature. I have no problem with it. It just seemed a bit overdone in this installment. Maybe it was me.
Now for the story itself, as I said, I did enjoy it. I can't speak much about the plot without being super spoilery, but I will say this. I really like this world, and it was cool being sent to different places all over the world.
Since I don't remember enough about the characters in the first book to talk about character development over the course of the two, I can only talk about what I know from The Shadow Hour. Echo definitely learns a lot of lessons, and she learns that she can't beat the darkness in the world alone, even if she thinks she needs to. And Caius learns a lot about himself. Did I like him in the last book? I dunno, but I liked him a lot here. And oh my goodness Dorian definitely grew a lot. He grew into a much more well-rounded character than how he began. But my favorite was Jasper. Joking and flirting, but still kind of serious.
Overall
I liked it, even though I may have been a bit disappointed. I'm definitely going to continue on with The Savage Dawn, hopefully in less than two years.
Characters: 3 stars
Plot: 4 stars
Writing: 3 stars
World: 4 stars
Feels: 3 stars
3.5 stars
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