by Vanessa Len.
This review will contain spoilers for book one in this series, Only a Monster.
This is the sequel to one of my favorite books from last year, and I’m always a little hesitant going into sequels because I often find them disappointing compared to the first book. Vanessa Len, however, have managed to get the sequel very intriguing with just the right amount of recaps from book one for this to be really good.
In this book we follow Joan after the events of Only a Monster where she successfully changed the timeline to save her family, but her success has come with a great cost. Her friend doesn’t remember her anymore, and no one but her remembers the old timeline.
It was quite a long time since I read the first book in the series, and I realized when I started reading that I didn’t quite remember what had happened. But I think that also worked out for the better since no one but Joan remembers the events of the last book either. That means that we get to remember at the same rate as everyone else. And I feel like this would have been a less satisfying read had I re-read the previous book. Mostly because there were times when Joan’s memory wasn’t all that clear either and she spend a lot of time trying to figure out why certain places felt familiar. And had I know from the start why, I know I’d been annoyed by having to wait for someone else to catch up. So, for me, this sequel came at the right time where the previous book was just hazy enough in my mind that everything clicked together like a satisfying puzzle in my mind as I was reading.
I think the plot was interesting and allowed for more exploration of this very interesting world. Joan’s unique powers get a lot more attention here and we follow Joan on the journey to figure out what her powers are and why she can undo things and most of all why her powers are deemed forbidden. It’s full of action and always new twists and turns that keep the reader’s attention from beginning to end.
The writing is easy and fast and fit the genre well and I find that it has the right balance between explanatory details and fast paced action. I love this world and I always feel like I know enough to follow along, but it never gets boring and too much.
I think there’s really just one thing that annoyed me while reading, and it’s the fact that we’re having a bit of “conflict due to lack of talking” in this book. The two main characters here, Nick and Joan, used to know one another. One’s the hero, the other’s the Monster, but Nick doesn’t remember any of what happened before. He doesn’t know who he was and what he did or what Joan did. Joan does, and when the details of the past timeline starts to unravel before them, Joan fails to tell Nick the truth. There’s reason for it in the book, but I don’t buy it. She allows for a bigger conflict because she doesn’t tell him everything. And that annoys me so much. I hate when things would probably just be better if people had a normal conversation. And I suppose I’m not a huge fan of the almost love triangle of this series either, but that’ll slide for now.
A clear 5/5 stars and a series I highly recommend.
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