This was not as good as the first one. Also, I initially missed the content warning in the beginning about chapter 12 and ended up reading most of it, but ultimately I had to skip it. It was a whole chapter of some pretty foul and descriptive sexual assault/rape. While I appreciate the author writing the disclaimer and also not making the book contingent on this one chapter, it begs the question: why even write it to begin with? Rape scenes (sexual assault in general) rarely add to the development of plots. There are times that, if handled correctly, they can offer something to the book but that wasn’t the case here at all. This chapter worth of abuse offered absolutely nothing to the plot or character depth. It was also one of the more graphic depictions of sexual assault that I’ve read. I’m also of the opinion that truly great horror books don’t need sexual assault to achieve that shock, disgust, and horror value. 

This was a let down from book 1. I already own book 3, so I think I may still give it a shot but I’m truly hoping for the series to get back to the point and skip the assault.

2.5/5 stars. 

This ended up not being for me after all. The blurb was intriguing to me but ended up having too many pop references, a lot of politics (I did appreciate the American president slander), and other media mentions that I didn’t relate much to. 

While I did value the political talks and the stance, I also wasn’t expecting such a political book. Nothing wrong with that if that’s what you’re looking for, but unfortunately with everything wrong going on in the world, I want to escape reality instead of reliving it while reading. I wish I had known this before reading because I probably would’ve chosen to skip this one just due to personal preference. 

The writing wasn’t too bad but some of the sentences and wording were very repetitive. A good example of what I mean is at the very start of the book with the word “body” being overly used: “Between the two is my body, lying prostrate on the floor. ​Next to me is a body. A man’s body. ​Elation is cocooning my body. A conviction shoots up through my body like electricity.”

This book wasn't anything special to me unfortunately. The characters were just ok, the story was just ok, but I did really enjoy the writing. Sadly, this didn't feel incredibly special to me. The characters and the story felt similar to other books that I've read and it didn't have enough uniqueness to make it stand out to me. It also could've been much shorter in my opinion. Or at least I wanted it to be. And the pacing was rough. This was slow and unevenly paced.

This fell short of my expectations.

RTC.