3.5 stars.

This installment didn't feel as smooth or accessible to me as A Wrinkle in Time. There were several times I found myself lost in the narrative and feeling it over my head--which was concerning considering that this is a middle grade novel.

Still, L'Engle's writing remains magical and amazingly imaginative. There are great teaching points for humanity and several timeless messages of goodness, evil, and the need for improvement in the human race.

I don't know where the rest of the series is going to go, but I look forward to finding out--especially since the ending of this felt a little overly cliffhangery.