This book and the first one are a hot mess. Full of continuity errors, erratic miscommunication, personality changes, inconsistencies, plot confusion, characterization and writing style changes... It's difficult to read them. Big plot points are revealed to MCs, aha! moments are had, and then completely forgotten. Concepts and people are introduced, never to be explained and then those plot points or ideas are left unfinished. Overreactions are had to things that previously had been discussed as not a big deal. So much repetition occurs, and then is irrelevant or contradicted. The plot reads like a wattpad novel.
In the first book, Zane is angry at a previous love for betrayal, but in the second book, he's simply sad at her loss/death. A big one for me is Malachi and Zane declaring themselves lifelong protectors of the weak & helpless and using their strength for good, then seeming to have no initial negative reaction to laws that basically enslave and oppress all Omegas. They don't seem to be happy about how they themselves are affected by those laws, but even their feelings about how the laws affect Aria are mixed. They should have been outraged or something but they weren't at all. The reactions were really strange and self-motivated, self-serving, with a flavor of bowing down to the government, assuming government is unquestionable; un-alpha-like and contrary to their previous characterization. Then they seem to suddenly remember who they are and make off-page changes and Aria is credited with showing them the error of their ways and the plight of omegahood, when she wasn't present or inspiring. Motivations are fickle at every turn so the book is just frustrating. At every corner you're left with: "What?!? But that doesn't make sense!"
Even the transition between books one and two is so strange. The end of the first book is a hyper-dramatic cliffhanger, with Aria on the run for her life, in immanent danger, helpless, missing, going into hiding while the pack wildly looks for her with the help of her friends (she's lost her phone all left all possessions behind.) Then as the next book starts, she's living her life normally, in public, not in hiding, acting like she's in no danger at all. She has the help of her friends, who are suddenly against the pack. They somewhat casually showed up and were able to become permanent fixtures in her daily life when for some reason they weren't before. The only prior reference to Ginger was similar to the aunt so I thought we were going to find out she was killed too. Nope, she just was randomly incommunicado, and now she's relocated to town and is a central character. And wasn't Noah the murderer immanently on her trail? Why is he not mentioned at all for the whole first part of the book? Whiplash I tell you.
Finally, all the "character arcs" in the second book are out of left field. Three of the four pack members were great guys who never treated her poorly. Not one time. Throughout the book they were gentle, careful, supportive, went at her pace, etc. They didn't push and they worked hard to make her comfortable at every turn. Even at the close of the first book when a miscommunication was happening they reacted in a normal, healthy way to receiving shocking new: they were surprised and a little hurt but tried to slow things down and talk to reach an understanding. Zane alone rejected her while the others tried to put a stop to it. (Even that was really inconsistent with their personalities and pack dynamics, the strong leader Malachi and his lieutenant Zane suddenly switched roles uncharacteristically.) Then in this book they spend the whole time making up for being terrible people they'd never been to prove what they'd already proven. And she took the misbehavior of one and broadly applied it to them all. I just can't. She spends so much of the first book telling herself to open up and be honest because she is afraid her secrecy will hurt them (maybe even get them killed) and then when all her secrets come to light and they are hurt, the pack alone takes all the blame for being awful. I always understood why she kept her secrets but all the alphas' groveling and lifestyle changing in this second book were so frustrating. Her own lack of any remorse was a personality change. Quinn and Dash made perfect book boyfriends, but then you read things like this part: "I study him, searching for any sign of the old Dash—the charming manipulator and the self-centered alpha who thought the world revolved around him—but all I see is sincerity and a vulnerability..." then later , "“It wasn’t just that night, Dash. It was a pattern—a long, painful pattern.”" Dash was not like that in the first book. He is literally described as a golden retriever and is so, so sweet. A people-pleasing sweetie was his pattern. Yeah he's charming, but he was never manipulative or self-centered, so I was disgusted with these kinds of foundationless "arcs." Same with Quinn and Malachi. They didn't really have anything to make up for except not noticing her walking out while they reprimanded Zane. Malachi may have been a bit AHole-ish with accusing her of putting them in danger, but he was trying to talk it out and take care of her during the conversation. Somehow the first one she forgives and accepts is Zane, randomly asking for his bite. The one she punishes the longest is Dash. Poor Dash. That slayed me.
Aria was a fun character to read for the first half of the first book: witty, relatable, fun, snarky, and reasonable. She started to go down for me in the latter part of the first book, then in this second book she was whiny, annoying, unreasonable, flippant. She stopped making any sense. She became really unlikeable.
The very worst part of the whole charade is the end. After a confrontation, you never find out what happens to Noah. Aria is rescued from him, a gun is taken from him, then all focus shifts onto the things Noah is involved in. It doesn't seem he was killed, it's not clear that he was arrested or prosecuted either. He was the boogyman in the first book and a footnote in the second. Weird.