Initial Thoughts:
I am tired of this series, and this is only the second book! That being said I did like this novel more than the first, and this novel felt easier to push myself to finish than the first, with the reasons being: that the plot was actually moving and I stopped forcing myself to like Rosie and Bastian, and the 99 other characters Mary Twomey tried to get me to care about. Honestly, for this series to work, someone needs to die so I am eagerly awaiting our first battle. Within Rosie’s party, there are 10 people and 3 animals, accounting for 13 names that Twomey expects me to remember and care about. Not a chance. In my mind, for simplicity, Damond and Draper (another new character), are the same person, and all the animals are the squirrel, and Rousseau (I honestly don’t even remember how to spell it but this is what spell check gave me) was written as “R” in my head. The amount of characters in this novel just makes it feel cluttered and I spend half the time reading and trying to remember names than to actually enjoy the story. This could be what Twomey wants as, where this novel is faster than the first, the entire plot is moving at a snail's pace only to rush near the end and leave us off at a cliffhanger. That being said, it is improving, slightly, I just wish Twomey would get to the point of this series already.
Characters:
As I said there are far too many characters in this novel, so like my last section I am going to focus on the main ones of Rosie, Bastine, and Reyn because he’s my favorite. Reyn, I love him, but I do not understand his relationship with Lane because I feel like she’s a decade older than him. Nevertheless, he is a sweetheart and the only person I really care about. Bastine is worse in this novel than in the previous one as his inability to learn puts himself into more trouble as he has a knack for making Rosie mad at him. Like I do not get what Twomey is trying to make his character to be, because he is extremely unlikeable, and flakey in his feelings and actions. I honestly do not know why he is even invested in Rosie, besides her ability to save Roland. His character has no redeeming qualities, and should not be the love interest, but Rosie is stupid and will forgive him no matter his blunders. I do blame Rosie’s ugly childhood for this, but our girl needs to bump up her IQ and get a clue about what is going on. I am so tired of her crying over Bastine and being too trusting of everyone and seems to have forgotten she’s in a magical land that wants to kill her. Rosie snuggling with Master Kerrdick moments after meeting him? Knock it off. Crying over Bastine being a dick to you? Get over it you knew it was coming. As our main characters, it is just tiring to see her constantly fall into the same traps over and over again, in which “Lost Girl” is really “Watch me let this toxic guy hurt me over and over again”. At this point, I am rooting for her demise to see if she can actually learn a lesson.
Plot and Writing:
Twomey's writing is good, with this novel being less confusing than the last due to already knowing some of the rules of Avalon. Twomey followed the needed growth of a sequel, and does this by moving the plot forward and introducing us to new places that expand the world. Places like the Lost Village were nice to see that not everything in Avalon was bad because of the war and that greed, sin, and dirt still exist in Twomey’s fake world as it does in the real one. I loved the Forgotten Forest, and I think that what made me want to keep reading was because of the setting and what it means to have Cheval Mallet carry you off. The plot also accomplished what the first novel's goal was, to use Rosie as a compass to find Roland and bring him back to his Kingdom. The pacing of this novel was a bit better, however, the start of the novel was still slow, leaving us with a rushed ending. With this novel being two of fourteen (ew I will definitely not be finishing the series), it makes sense that the cliff ender ending had to happen, and while I am not a fan, I did like the direction Twomey was going and will be interested to see what they do to the plot line with the upcoming installment.
Conclusion:
While this is making slow progress into becoming a better series, it is still too slow for me to recommend to anyone, or appreciate it being a novel that I read. Still, especially with the cliffhanger this novel leaves off at, I am slightly looking forward to the third novel, only to see where this disaster of a series goes.