As with the previous installment of this series, the world-building is interesting but a bit too much is left under-explained. The characters are intriguing but remain underdeveloped (with the exception of the lead, Kai, who is almost 'over'developed in that he is meant to be so complex that he becomes wildly inconsistent instead). The writing itself is okay -- a little messy, but it works for Kai's voice.

But where Book One had a great plot to carry it through, the plot this time around just wasn't interesting to me. Early glimmers seemed to have the makings of a great mystery and an eventful road-trip, but too many twists, fake-outs, and sudden dramatic introductions of new underdeveloped characters (Aisla, for example) had me not caring about anything by the end. This book felt like double its @250 page length, and while it had many good scenes throughout -- especially in the first half, like the part where someone tries to blow up a car with Kai and his friend in it -- the overall weak plotting and weaker character- and relationship-development were tedious. I don't think I will continue with this series.

Always enjoy a Rhys Ford book!

As always, other people will have explained and examined the plot to death so I'll give my overall impressions of the book.

I really like Kai. He's battled his way up from a very abusive childhood and is, naturally, emotionally scarred and skittish because of it. He's a bit like Miki from Sinner's Gin and a bit like Cal from Rob Thurman's books. But Ryder? For reasons I don't understand, Ryder is rather bland to me. I have very little sense of his personality. I admire the fact that he's both smart enough to know that Kai is worth waiting for and ballsy enough to say so, but that's about it. Now I know Rhys is fabulous at characterization so I don't understand the disconnect. Somehow he just doesn't work for me.

Rhys has done a great job of world building because I wonder how things are elsewhere around the world. What are things like in Japan? Or Italy? Or Egypt? So far we've only see the merged Elfin and Human world as it is in California, but Rhys has an entire world to play with and I sincerely hope she does.