The characters in "Hourglass" are well-developed and relatable, each facing their own challenges and dilemmas. Readers may find themselves emotionally invested in the characters' journeys as they navigate the complexities of their respective time periods. Means' ability to create authentic and engaging characters is a notable strength of the novel.

However, the book's pacing can be somewhat uneven. While certain sections are gripping and emotionally resonant, there are moments when the narrative feels slow, causing the story to lose momentum. These pacing issues may challenge some readers' engagement, particularly those seeking a consistently brisk and compelling plot.

Really enjoyed this book. It was very unique. Fantastic plot that played out well. Very well written and put together. What an ending.

When the state of the world is grim, my mind always leans towards dystopian thrillers. But when it then comes to actually dealing with them, I don't feel steady enough to engage with them. There are already so many uncertainties, why offer my mind even more? And yet, I can not resist the temptation and hence I found myself intrigued by Hourglass. While it took me longer to eventually get to it then I'd hoped, I devoured it in one sitting once I settled down for it. Thanks to MonkeyTree Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay!

One of the only things guaranteed in life is that you will die. Death is the great equalizer, to bring in another cliché, but the one thing none of us know is exactly when we will die. And so we spend our lives in a fragile balance, at once making the most of today and simultaneously worrying about tomorrow. But what if you knew exactly when you were going to die? And what if your role in society was predicated upon your life expectation? That's the concept behind Hourglass and I found it incredibly intriguing. After two major pandemics, 24th century America has managed to eradicate all diseases and has unlocked DNA to the extent that they know how long a life is predestined for everyone. For some, this is a long and happy life, for others it is only 16 years. This immediately triggered a question for me, however. If all diseases have been eradicated, why are some still doomed to a short life by their DNA? Admittedly, I don't really know anything about DNA, but this felt a bit plothole-y to me. It also sets the reader up for the big plot twist, in the sense that one is already primed for suspicion. The suspicion is a natural element of a thriller, but I felt Means could have perhaps explained this a little better to keep the reader guessing for a little longer.

Lucy is only 16 and preparing for her wake. She knows she will die today, she has always known she will die today. From birth, doctors had shared her time of death with her and her entire life has been shaped by her short lifespan. But then she doesn't die. What went wrong? Was the science wrong or is she, somehow, wrong? And what does her extended life mean for her society? Enter Evergreen Mason, the technical protagonist of Hourglass, who works at Virionics, the company behind the life-changing medical technology that allows people to know their death date. She is honoured to work there and has been working for a job there her entire life. Blessed with a long lifespan, her entire youth was dedicated towards learning and now she is ready to start giving back to her society. But things don't seem to add up. When she meets Axon, the journalist covering Lucy's case, the two start digging and everything starts unraveling. As you can maybe tell from my summary here, I kind of wish Lucy had been the real protagonist of the novel. Her story of expected death turned into unexpected life is fascinating and throws up all kinds of interesting questions. What do you do with the uncertainty? How do you plan for a life you never thought you'd have? Evergreen felt a little flatter to me as a character, blinded by her own faith in the system and occasionally quite judgmental about others. Axon's character is developed exactly to the point he needs to be, but no further. He works well in contrast to both Evergreen and Lucy, but all the questions I had about his life, his relationship with his boss and work, etc. remained unexplored. While the eventual twist didn't surprise me, I did enjoy the ending. While I don't want to spoil it here, I felt it followed in the tradition of 1984 and Brave New World in its bleakness, although not with quite the same impact.

Elizabeth Means is both a writer and a Medical Laboratory Scientist, so she is very well-versed in the medical details behind her story. As I said, my knowledge of DNA is rudimentary at best, so I did like that she takes the time to explain some of the aspects behind the novel's science. At times this feels a little like an exposition dump, but I can forgive that since it was useful to me. I also liked the flow behind the novel. Means wastes no time and ensures the tension throughout Hourglass remains steady, something which should seem obvious for the genre but I have actually found lacking in other books. I did find myself questioning the timing of the novel, which is something Elizabeth Means absolutely could not influence. (Slight spoiler warning!) She mentions in the Acknowledgements that the novel had been in the works for eight years (I believe), which means that even though the 2020 pandemic is included, it was not written with it in mind. However, now that we are in the COVID-19 world, I find myself very hesitant about stories that suggest government entities might be messing with us through diseases and vaccines. Means, a medical professional herself, absolutely does not support any kind of conspiracy thinking, but her novel plays with that aspect. She could not have predicted where the world was going to go, but it does mean a slight warning comes with the book. Read it with a critical mindset. Fiction is not reality! (Spoiler over!) All in all, Hourglass is an intriguing but not very deep book. What I mean by that is that I very much enjoyed what Means was doing, but that it is more concept than extensive story. I didn't even entirely realise this was set in America, although I assumed it. Evergreen, Lucy, and Axon aren't developed as much as they could be, and their world has some very convenient aspects for the plot to take place. So while it is not super "deep", Hourglass is a good time.

Hourglass gave me a lovely and thrilling afternoon of frantic reading. I enjoyed the concept and plot Means built, although I wished she would have gone the extra mile on some of the world-building and characterisation. I do also feel sorry for the timing of the release, considering the COVID-19 pandemic and the topic of her book.

This was an interesting book. I enjoyed it. The characters were well done and I liked the writing. It was a bit confusing being introduced to so many characters that at first didn't seem to be connected but it all made sense after just a few chapters. I liked how you got a lot of different perspectives and got to see there different perspectives on life based on how long they were supposed to live.
A verry good book!

I am really sorry to say that I had to DNF this book when I reached 40%.

It was just taking too long to get into the major point of the story and I found it very hard to connect with any of the characters. I thought the premise of the story was intriguing but the pace of the plot was too slow for me so as a result didn’t grasp me attention.

1/5. Thanks to Netgalley and the author for a copy of the novel.

I really wanted to like this book. But alas, this is going to be full of complaints.

I hated Evergreen from the moment I saw that name on the book. She’s arrogant, annoying and has serious misogyny issues. Any time she sees a female friend, she immediately thinks about how much better they’d be if they didn’t get male attention. Like stfu, just because you can’t get bitches..
Although no one will accept this, evergreen lives for male validation. Which isn’t the worst, but needs to be issued and discussed in a piece of media made for young girls.
None of the other characters are better than evergreen, but mere cardboard cutouts that are there just to fill up space.

The plot and worldbuilding were lacking of substance. I’m sure that this world will be pretty different in three centuries. Here, however, everything is so similar to today. The only thing distinguishing the two realities is the weird pop culture-ish way everyone acts. The plot, though intriguing, is so badly crafted that it has no significance anymore.

The language is too much. Not because it’s complex or lyrical. Because again, reading this book is like watching a cast of TikTok ears in hype house. Which is not suitable for a piece of literature.

In conclusion, I’m profoundly disappointed with this book. But I think this was already established.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this book.

This was a very interesting read! I really enjoyed the whole thing, despite being mad at where it ended. I will definitely need to read the next book!

Not my usual read but I really enjoyed it. Set in 24th century where everyone knows when exactly they will die.
Evergreen Mason, a young American scientist discovers that someone has lived beyond their allotted time and sets out to find out how and why this happened and what it means.
Intense, well written and frightening- it somehow doesn’t seem unrealistic.
4 Stars ⭐️ Recommended reading

Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair review.

The premise is good and the story is well-written, but the pacing dragged in many places and the characters never grabbed me. I think it's a good story, but just not for me.

Really liked this book, was a good read and even though the idea isn’t completely new I was really interested in where it was going. Wasn’t as much of a fan of the characters, but it might just be a me thing of not being able to completely relate to them. Never the less it was a good read.

I feel this book had a great concept. It was engaging and I wanted to read more to see what happened. I realized that I was nearing the end of the book and nothing so much happened. Just when I thought things were starting to heat up the book ended. It was still a good read but I feel like the story could have been so much more if the story line continued. I think a second book with these characters would be amazing

Excellent premises: a dystopian world in which everyone know at birth their life expectancy and is thus guided to an appropriate schooling system and career.
Unfortunately, I found the characters rather bland, and the twist didn't present any surprise at all, and there were some highly unbelievable scenes (like the lack of surveillance systems in a big, concerned with confidentiality lab), but I rather liked the realistic ending.

* Plot: 4★
* World building: 2★
* Characters: 3★
* Coherence/Consistency: 2★
* Language/Humor/Witticism: 3★
* Enjoyability: 3★

The book started out as an interesting dystopian story, about knowing exactly the date and time that you will die. It had a lot of promise, but part-way through, it veered off into LGBT territory ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really tried to read this, but the constant point of view changes make is near impossible. It’s rather boring too, and characterless. Really disappointed I didn’t like this more.

How would society change if everyone knew the day they die? What would you do? A concept that is discussed in many Sci-Fi books, movies and shows.

So, the concept isn’t new, but the execution is different from other mediums in that genre, which I found entertaining. The notion that the whole population of earth is divided in different classes on the premise how long they are going to live, so that everyone has the chance to live their best life (according to the government), was interesting.

The execution of this book was good, I enjoyed reading it, I wanted to know what was going on, even though I didn’t completely like the characters and couldn’t connect with them. The ending of the book was the best part, at least for me and it made the whole experience better.

3 Stars - intriguing premise, some faults

I'm pretty conflicted about this one!

Hourglass by Elizabeth Means has a great setup: in the future, mankind has conquered all ways of unnatural death. Viruses, bacteria, cancer, genetic defects - none of those things can take a life prematurely. Scientists have gained such a deep understanding of DNA that they are able to predict exactly when an individual's time is going to be "up" and so society is stratified along the lines of one's Lifetime Potential, or LP.

Children with a low LP get to spend their few years just enjoying themselves and noone expects them to contribute much to society. Mid-LPs do get an education and are expected to at least carry their weight and high LPs are the elite. They grow up with the responsibility to become high achievers and to make use of their many years.

In this society, Lucy, a teen with a low LP, just doesn't die when she should, which is a great mystery that Evergreen Mason sets out to explore. Evergreen has just started her very prestigious job with Virionics, THE company that provides the vaccines that keep everybody healthy. Evergreen is ambitious and finding out what sets Lucy apart from everybody else might be just the project to advance her career.
Unfortunately, there are some forces that very much do not want some uncomfortable truths to be uncovered and Evergreen might not know what she is getting herself and her unlikely ally (and possible love interest) Axon into with her investigations.

So, let's start with what I liked: as I said, the setup has plenty of potential and the story draws you right in. The characters had distinct and realistic personalities that reflected their respective different LPs very well. I was always compelled to keep reading and wanted to know how things would play out. Lucy in particular I thought was great. She was the most relatable and likeable character by far and I really felt for her vulnerable self that had to deal with preparing for early death, and then being left hanging in the air, not knowing how long she might have to live after all.

The whole world-building had an issue though and it was really glaring from the beginning. When there are no natural causes of death left, why should anybody die at a young age at all? Why is absolutely nobody in the book ever wondering how it can be that there are so many people with a low LP? How could a society be built on such a glaring logical pothole? This made suspension of disbelief a bit difficult at times, but you could maybe read it as a commentary on how far a society can go just on a constructed "truth" and consistent brainwashing. (Although I am not sure if the author actually intended it this way.)

However, what really put me off a lot is just how macho, superficial and misogynistic everyone is. You would think such an advanced society would have grown, but nope. Right in the beginning, Evergreen catches her boyfriend in bed with another woman. When thinking about that woman, Evergreen uses words like wh**e, or sl*t. Everybody judges everybody else by their looks. Apparently having meaningless sex is the epitome of "fun". Being "hot" is the one thing everybody desires most. Almost every character is sort of a jerk in that regard, actually.
There is one minor character and the way she was described almost made me DNF: it was a not very attractive woman and it was very much implied that she was just a feminist because she was ugly anyway and that she was just jealous of the pretty girls. This woman also apparently wanted nothing more than to be considered hot and bangeable and kept going on about her derriere being really great. She is described as being so unattractive in fact, that Axon has to get drunk just to be able to sleep with her. What the heck, Elizabeth Means?

Sure, this could be social commentary as well, but this stuff is so intervoven into all interactions and thoughts throughout the book that I am afraid that it is just a reflection of the author's view on people and women in particular.

So, while this was an engrossing read with lots of potential, the negative aspects did ruin quite a bit of the fun for me. I am still curious how the story will unfold but I am not sure yet if I am going to actually pick the sequel up.

I have received an advance review copy via NetGalley and voluntarily provide my honest opinion. Thank you very much!

Hourglass, by Elizabeth Means, is a dystopian young adult novel, follows Lucy Hanson, a young girl who lives past her Lifetime Potential- when she’s supposed to die. Evergreen, a young scientist, follows her story and unravels the horror of a society she works for. Axon, a young and lively news reporter, follows Lucy as she continues her abnormal life.
Hourglass is a confusing but entertaining novel; the multiple POVs confused me for a while, jumping between the three main characters and other side characters, important seemingly for that scene only. I found this made it harder to connect with the characters, which was disappointing as Lucy’s story was fascinating. There are many casual scenes I found unnecessary and uncouth, from a sleazy high-up figure, to getting drunk at funerals, and multiple people getting with others at wakes. In addition, the slow start and biology focused book was hard to get through at the start, however later gained suspense and was very interesting.
There was character growth (and a lot of it!!), stressful mini-heists, bugging of rooms and assassinations, which I found both amusing and entertaining. Overall, the book was great, slow at the start and heavily biology focused (showing incredible amounts of research!), however ended up action-packed and stressful in the best way!

TWs include LOTS of death, seemingly casual mentions of SH and calorie restriction, and more.

I really enjoyed the premise of Hourglass, I was immediately drawn in and the world-building in this book is excellent!

As soon as I read the description for this book, I couldn't wait to read it! The premise was very intriguing and all the scientific info in the story was well explained. The characters were likeable and there weren't really any slow parts.
The only "criticism" I have is that the ending really didn't do it for me - it felt a bit rushed and I wanted to know more. All in all, I really liked this book and would recommend it!

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book*

Thank you to netgally and monkey tree publishing for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

***Trigger warning of self harm in this book***
First I want to say I really enjoyed this cover! It was eye catching and definitely tied into the storyline. I could not book this book down.
Knowing the exact time you will die down to the second, science comes along way in this futuristic book.
Lucy is ready to die at her reverse wake only to have that minute pass by and for her to keep breathing. This page turner takes you on a wild ride with a great ending I certainly wasn't expecting. The science talk that is in this book was very well written and I loved that Elizabeth wrote it in a way that didn't make the reader feel dumb and need to Google all the lingo just to read the book. The characters are all well written, the world building is some of the best I've read lately. The ending felt very rushed though, too much was wrapped up too quickly. Highly recommend this book!