Quick-take: Good storytelling with only a few meaningful events.

Dan's Review

As with a typical book 2 of a trilogy, nothing particularly remarkable happened until the end.

Just take the big reveal of book 1 and the backstories given for Adrian and Nova and assume filler content about the two topics.

There are some skirmishes with minor characters, but beyond that, all the previous groundwork from book 1 is just expanded some.

• Adrian starts doubting that The Renegades are all sweetness and sunshine.

• The author beats a dead horse about the cycle-of-dependence political theory (giving away free stuff destroys incentives for self-improvement)

• Nova starts 2nd-guessing her own loyalties with the anarchists.

• Adrian and Nova become much closer friends.

• Some history and Renegade lore is explained. The history stuff threw me off. Book 1 seemed to imply that superpowers were a recent phenomenon. However, Nova toured artifacts from superheroes going back to antiquity. I would think our world would be significantly different if we had people capable of flight, healing, and invulnerability. I see "Steelheart" by Brandon Sanderson as a more likely outcome.

There: You've got 3/4 of book 2. I wish authors of trilogies would drop something remarkable in their book 2, and not just at the end. I realize something needs to be saved for the finale, but it is annoying that I can just pick up a book 2 and assume it is 90% filler with a surprise to lead in to book 3.

Adrian has maintained his biggest secrets from Nova. Nova has maintained her biggest secrets from Adrian. A big entertaining story event did occur at the end, but I now need Book 3 to learn the fallout.

Fortunately, this filler story has been enjoyable enough that I do plan to pick up Book 3. Unfortunately, Book 3 is not available for another 6 months. I'm pleased I at least waited until Book 2 was a few months old before starting this series. Score: 4/5