With each new book the cast expands and the characters we all know grow through some kind of shift; it's a little too deliberate to be organic but works pretty well on a literary level. Some of the plot developments were a bit much, but never so extreme that I wanted to give up.

Honestly, I never expected to see this series through to the conclusion; the first one was fun, sure, but it was far from joining my favorites shelf - probably in large part because I found it hard to relate to any of the characters. However, I think it does a great job skirting that fine line between comic-book style villains and black-and-white morality, and being too dark and gritty for what is probably a pre/teen target audience. A little outside my preferred reading range, but I did enjoy them.