This book definitely felt like the middle novel in a trilogy. It was kind of a 'bridge' as the characters literally travel from teh setting of book 1 to where book 3 will start. There were little bits of plot progression, but not much. The characters didn't develop a lot either. But all this didn't bother me THAT much, L. J. Smith just carries me along with her. She reminds me what it was like to be a teenager, and how big your feelings are at that age.

This is when this series starts to drag. I mean, the FMC describing the two MMC as "good" and "evil" gets kind of old after a while.

things are dragging a little bit although I do like that the love triangle has spiced up a bit. Def want to know how it ends though.

Good second book in the series. Still a lot of twilight references even though this one came first. How did Meyer get away with it? The kids find the White House and the good crystal is destroyed. They have a shard which can destroy the bad one Mr Z has. Gabriel runs off to be evil with Lydia (Zetes’ daughter). They are about to set off to go back and destroy the bad crystal.

This series just keeps getting better

much better than the first one! there was actually a sense of urgency in this book that i didnt feel in book 1 at all. it does annoy me that smith always makes guy Main Girl DOESN'T go for much more developed, though. idk anything about Rob other than he's apparently in love with Kait after like maybe two weeks of knowing her aND BARELY INTERACTING WITH HER AT ALL. its fricking annoying when gabriel and kait actually know each other.

The narrative is still going pretty strong. I was engaged despite the fast pacing and simplicity of the story. However, this installment has two things that are... eh...

1) Kaitlyn is basically cheating on Rob. Like she kisses and hugs and mind touches with Gabriel is and is way more concerned for him. I think she's only with Rob because she feels like that's the correct thing to do and Gabriel pushing her away irritates her or something. Like we can all tell she really wants to be with Gabriel but is like playing them both hot and cold because she like wants to have the best of both, I guess.
2) They treat mental illness kind of badly. Like we're told the prior psychic group all went insane and now they're being weaponized against the five leads, but then it's like "we can feel their insanity and their evil" and it's like... okay so, are you saying they're evil because they're sick? That's not how that works. Secondly, if they're evil because they were corrupted by the evil crystal then... like... act like that's the cause? Don't just write them off as "crazy and evil"??

Otherwise this is basically part 2 of the book. They've escaped and they're looking for help, we realize Gabriel wasn't unaffected by the evil crystal which causes him and Kait to get closer, they find the guy from the airport on this secret little island colony with other psychics, they endure a psychic attack, everyone on the island does a 180 and goes from "welp we can't help" to "okay let's go defeat him" and then Gabriel, being a fucking little edgelord because Kait like is with Rob and he's like mad about it despite pushing her away decides to run away with Lydia back to the evil guy.

The majority of this book is them just being on the road so it's definitely just a bridging book between the start and ending :/ I got through it easy enough but I do think this didn't need to be its own book so I suppose I do understand why later editions of this book were bound together in a 3 book bulk; the story is linear enough that it doesn't really need to be chopped apart.

Nothing really happened until the last few pages. One of the biggest problems in this series lies with the Rob and Kait romance. They barely act like a couple but we are supposed to believe they are in love? I mean, I get they were on the run this book but there seems to be nothing between them other than what you would expect from friends. That might be on purpose though. Overall, this book was short with nothing really happening. I would have loved for there to have been more danger since they are on the run from an evil cult and all but this book acts more like a filler preparing for the final installment.

It took me a loonnggg time before finishing this book. I stopped reading halfway, because I found a short-but-not-really-short online novel and read it.

But yea, I have nothing to say about the second book, really.


/weird