Wow. Just wow. So much happened in this book. Which is weird because the reviews I came across said nothing happened in this book and it was so boring. Did they read the same book? Seriously.
1. I didn't really like the way the first one ended because I thought Daemon was getting out of character with his feelings. I still kind of felt that way in this one too. He seemed to lose too much of his arrogance and snark, at least around her. And it was one of the things I loved about him, and even about them together. Though...reading the scenes from his point-of-view from Obsidian in the back of that book did help to piece together his seeming character change. [It also made me hate him slightly less after that cafeteria fiasco.]
2. So so so much sexual tension. They end up making out every where, no matter how many times she tells him it shouldn't happen because they don't feel anything for each other. None of the make out sessions are quite like the one he walked away from in the first book, but they still created tension. And it's hilarious that she keeps denying their feelings for each other. A large part of her denial is that she's upset with how he treated her in the first book, and hurt by it, so I'm screaming at him to tell her everything that was in his point-of-view from the back of the first book. Tell her what really happened at lunch!! Though he did have some incredible will power in the end.
3. Things get twisted. If their growing sexual tensions and denials of such weren't drama enough, throw in some extra super powers, a new kid in town that's suspicious, and huge connection to Dawson and Bethany's story and you have more drama than one person can deal with. Plus, we learn that there is more to the DOD than can be expected. While I didn't have as many suspicions about Blake as everyone else did, I still screamed at her to walk away when he was becoming too dangerous. She should have listened. It was more than Daemon being jealous and hurt and she knew it. But I had major suspicions about who turned in Dawson and Bethany which proved to be true, but was surprising in that I didn't realize he had already made an appearance in the story. Somehow I thought he was older the first time around.
4. While there are a lot of things unanswered (such as Bethany), and rightfully so to leave more to be discovered in he next novel, there were also things that were painful. I wished so so much that Blake wasn't as horrible as he was. It was beyond what I could handle in the end. I'm still really sad about it all. I was also shocked with and for Daemon with the people he crossed to protect Katy. And most especially, I realized that Katy was incredibly strong and incredibly stupid. She should have learned to trust her instincts, but she let emotional connections prevail every time. And I would have given up in her situation in the end when she kept fighting.
It did lose a star. And it was a very important star to lose with me. While I love the characters and the story, the passage of time was awkward and felt forced. "This happened and then this happened." One of my biggest fears as a writer is that kind of story telling. I've always been a short story writer and writing a novel made me nervous in that I wasn't sure how to fill in gaps in time without going through the motions of this then that then this. It's fine to do that in a rough draft, but it should be fleshed out at final draft. So it lost a star in delivery.
Although ending on a cliffhanger, this was the perfect cliffhanger to end on. It's enough that I'm satisfied where this one ended and also excited to read the next. The first book had a cliffhanger that seemed to end mid-scene so I had to keep reading the books to figure out what was happening. This one ended perfectly, that while I really want to read the next one, I can also stop and go read some other things I need to read first. Still a great series!
