The problem with not reading the book at the time it comes out is that you age out of it. This isn’t a bad book, and if I was 12 years younger (closer to the recommended audience age) I’d probably give it at least 1 star more. I just think I’ve aged out a lot of YA, especially YA that was first published 12 years ago.

Pros
Interesting plot, good potential, an easy read

Cons
very insta-lovey, I can see quite a few holes and missing plot points that reveal it hasn’t been thoroughly fleshed out. The world building is interesting but not enough.

Character thoughts (please bear in mind I came into this not knowing the ultimate series outcome but knowing a bit about the people from art etc)
- juliette is fine. To be honest I’m surprised she isn’t more insane or nasty after her life.
- Adam is nice enough; can’t really get behind the insta love (I know we’re meant to think it’s not insta but I do not count random flashbacks where they barely looked at each other and didn’t even talk)
- kenji is meant to be the funny one right? This is a part of where I know I’ve aged out in that I didn’t find him that funny. Maybe he’ll grow on me, I certainly don’t dislike him
- Warner is insane and interesting

Will I read book 2? Yes because it’s easy to read quickly and I want to see if it meets any of that potential.

I get it, Warner has a more complicated backstory than we knew in book one…but are we supposed to forget he’s also quite literally someone willing to torture toddlers to see how powerful his recently kidnapped female prisoner is?

Are we supposed to conveniently forget that part from book one because in this book he was nice to a stray dog? I don’t want a kid and I like dogs, but he put Juliette and a toddler in a room with retractable spikes just to see if she would kill the toddler trying to save him. That’s not a poor little misunderstood boy, that’s the mastermind behind Saw.

Adam was insufferable
Juliette was annoying and had absolutely no character development, despite claiming she did occasionally
Kenji was ‘funny’ in the way that ten year old boys are funny…which can be very funny at times but also incredibly lame and doesn’t really salvage this book.

Initially I thought I was going to rate this higher than book 1 (3 stars) because everyone says Warner makes it better. Then I thought it would at least be equal to book one, because of backstories. And then I realised it is in fact worse because the characters are more annoying, the world building is non-existent, and Juliette makes me want to scream.

The entire point of this series happened in one chapter at the end. Adam is an arse, Juliette is slightly improved and Warner is ok.

This series, though, is not ok. I won’t be reading the newer trilogy. It had such potential yet it’s the kind of book where characters make no visible progress or development - they are suddenly just different. The world has no building. The plot no substance. Ugh.