Unmarked picks off a few weeks after events of Unbreakable, with Kennedy pining away at her new boarding school for Jared and the rest of her friends, and trying on her own to track the mysterious and trouble events that have been occurring since the events at the prison.
Trouble may be closer than she thinks, however, as mysterious events begin happening at the school - not to mention a rash of disappearances nearby, where all of the victims bear a startling resemblance to Kennedy.
Eventually the group manages to find their way to each other once again, and the real story starts as they are once again faced with the seemingly impossible task of defeating Andras before he can destroy everything they hold dear. They'll have to decide just how far they're willing to go, however, when during their first real encounter they run into some unexpected allies, and must decide whether or not to trust them, despite all they've been taught.
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This wasn't a bad addition to the series, but it didn't live up to what I was expecting after reading Unbreakable. The first book, while slow to start off, did draw me in and make me look forward to seeing what happened next. We also saw some genuinely creepy settings, the orphanage and the prison, and I was looking forward to what our protagonists would be running into next.
Sadly, it's not as good as I expected after the prison.
They travel for a bit, including to Americas' lamest museum, but eventually they spend the last 3/4 of the book or so in one place. This wouldn't be bad on it's own - there's plenty of books with fascinating stories taking place in boarding schools, haunted houses, and the like. But there's just not a lot going on while they're there, either.
Most of what we see is the group getting to know their new 'allies', deciding whether or not to trust them, and occasionally working on finding a solution to dealing with Andras before the world ends. It's a lot of angst and little action, especially with Kennedy mooning over Jared the whole time.
Compared to the eeriness of the orphanage ghosts, and especially how creepily the prison and it's inhabitants, I wasn't impressed by what we're shown of Andras so far, either. He's somewhat cunning, but not more so than one could expect of a human enemy. His actions, and those he influences others to make are not what I'd expect either - he causes some awful things to happen, yes, but not more than could be done by a human. He's not as creepy as you'd expect of a demonic enemy, or as impressive.
It wasn't a bad book, but it was a bit dull compared to the first. It feels like it's more build-up to the next stage of the plot than a book on it's own. I'm definitely going to check out the last book when it comes out - hopefully things will pick up and we'll get somewhere in that one.
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I recieved the ARC of this book from the author/publisher through Goodreads Give-aways, in exchange for an honest review.
The ACR got here in two days. TWO. That's quite impressive, given that I'm still waiting for a horror one I won in Jan/Feb 2014 to arrive.