I really enjoyed the first book and was looking forward to reading this second installment but overall ended up pretty disappointed by it.

The writing was just as good as the first, like there really wasn't a drop in quality, but the plot beats felt almost exactly the same as the first book just slightly remixed - the bad guys were the same, the obstacles to overcome were the same, the friends and allies, the convenient rescues, even the relationship developments all felt stagnated because it was exactly the same as the first one. It just all felt pretty tedious to get through by the end, like the reading equivalent of treading water.

If there's ever a third book and my library gets a copy I would still probably read it at some point in the hopes that it'd be what I wanted from this one in terms of plot development so not a total waste but definitely a little disappointing.