So I liked this one MUCH better than the first book, and I'm so glad I gave the rest of this series another chance! I can't wait to finish the rest of these books, though that'll have to wait a bit I think - other book reviews that are overdue must come before personal reading sometimes. (maybe)

So, let's see, my thoughts. I finished this up in a couple of days about 3 weeks ago. It was a fast read. I liked the characters much better this time - everyone was more likeable and more human/more real this time and not so fake like the first book. There's like next to no romance in this one, which was a huge A+++ in my book. I'm thinking there's going to be the usual love triangle coming up pretty soon though, but not in this one - whew!

Cia's still a bit too perfect, but she's not quite as braggy about it as she was in the first one.

There's more mystery to this book - a feeling that there's stuff going on under the surface that we don't quite fully understand yet. I'm not a fan of the traditional "who done it" mystery genre, but this is good, it keeps you reading and wanting more.

The only down side to the book is there's little action, not really much happens. It's kind of like the first couple of Harry Potter books - not really much happens but man, is it setting the scene for future action.