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A review by wulvaen
Playing With Fire by Derek Landy
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
Tldr: ....😬🤷♂️
Soooooo this felt pretty much the exact same, plot-wise, as book 1. While there was so developing of things such as world-building and some new characters, it wasn't enough for the story to feel much different:
Book 1:
Soooooo this felt pretty much the exact same, plot-wise, as book 1. While there was so developing of things such as world-building and some new characters, it wasn't enough for the story to feel much different:
Book 1:
- Bad guy wants magical artifact to bring back ancient bad guys called The Faceless Ones (although turned out that was A ruse and he actually wanted the book of names to seize power of everyone).
- Supernatural Skeletal Detective Sculduggery Pleasant and his 12 year old apprentice detective Valkyrie Cain are on the case to stop him and saving the world.
- People of authority don't listen to or help them despite their reputation for helping.
- Eventually their friends band together to help them.
- They win.
Book 2:
- Bad guy wants magical artifact to bring back ancient bad guys called The Faceless Ones (actually true this time).
- Supernatural Skeletal Detective Sculduggery Pleasant and his now 13 year old apprentice detective Valkyrie Cain are on the case to stop him and saving the world.
- People of authority don't listen to or help them despite their reputation for helping.
- Eventually their friends band together to help them.
- They win.
Same formula, some differences, but overall it was the same story but with the same beloved humor.
I found this book had less character depth than the first, especially with Sculduggery. Valkyrie (Stephanie) did get some attention with character reveals but it was mostly about her attitude towards her family which we already sorta knew from book 1. She was also more active in fight scenes and in the schemes and leadership roles and I did enjoy the little glimpses of her and Sculduggery's progress as partners, such as secret code phrases and their unbreakable trust in eachother.
While there were some new characters introduced, such as Sanguine and the Grotesquery, the Grotesquery felt like a reskin of the White Cleaver Zombie from book 1, which is essentially just Nemesis from the Resident Evil 1 Remake game.
Overall, I love the humor, the vibe and the chemistry between Valkyrie and Sculduggery, and there were little bits of world-building present, but everything needed to be more fleshed out with more depth. And the story needed to be different than book 1.