This one was alright. Not as good as the first of the series, but alright. The story was fairly interesting, but nothing too amazing. The danger didn’t feel very real for most of the story. Magic, as usual, is cheap and overpowered. I also didn’t really feel as invested in the characters this time, especially the returning ones. I’ve kind of grown bored of them and they didn’t really develop much more in this one.
The writing itself was similar to the other two in the series, nothing remarkable. He repeated things that didn’t need repeating fairly often and sometimes told what he had already spent a few sentences showing, ruining the effect. He also gravitates more toward saying things explicitly, rather than leaving us to infer, which sometimes makes me feel like he thinks I’m stupid. Which would be okay for a young age group, which is who most of it is written for, but then he has a habit of using unnecessarily intelligent words. I had to use the dictionary a few times and I am older than his target audience and read the dictionary for fun. Again, this isn’t always a bad thing if the word is the best choice, but there were times when a more common word would have worked just as well.
Overall, I’m glad I’m done. The series started off well and immediately went downhill, as so many do. I am debating whether I want to read his other book or not. I definitely will be reading others before it if I do.