I need to preface this review by stating that I am about 25 years past the target demographic for this book, and I feel like it would be right up my alley if I weren't.
Echoing my review for Book 1, the omnipotent narrator, a great deal of exposition and kind of cardboard villains dragged this one down a bit for me, although I want to go back and say I read a lot of RL Stine as a kid and feel like a lot of those novels ended with a bit of mustache twirling, too. While I feel it's unfair for me to grade this book as an adult, I also know that some young adult fiction has resonated more strongly for me, although for younger adults there are some great lessons in this one about encountering bullies.
I'd love to see unnecessary characters eliminated (we didn't need to hang out with five or six kids and have to learn who they all were if they wouldn't have lines) and have one character at a time narrate the scene. I'll keep this spoiler free, but I felt like one particular reference to fake license plates was just silly, as was the prospect of a school exchange program being set up by police.
It felt like someone was reading me Shannon's story, glossing over bits, as opposed to immersing me in it first hand, just like a fairy tale. I'm still intrigued enough to keep reading.
Beautiful covers!