Significantly darker than the first one, but lots of funny moments and it ends on a light note
3 stars
This book starts with Astra's hero reputation trashed because of tabloid rumors, and even her friends suggesting that since it's been months, maybe it's time to stop wearing mourning black. The police chief suddenly hates her for no obvious reason. Plus there's someone running for office whose platform is all fearmongering against all super-powered individuals, especially those who wear masks to preserve their civilian life, like Astra does.
In other words, that intense, heart-wringing grief at the end of book one? Time jump so the author doesn't have to actually follow up on it, which would be understandable if they wanted to return everything to normal, but we don't get to go back to the generally optimistic feel of the first book either.
That said, there's still a lot of funny conversations and narrator observations. They carried me through a plot that could be summarized as "the world has gone …
This book starts with Astra's hero reputation trashed because of tabloid rumors, and even her friends suggesting that since it's been months, maybe it's time to stop wearing mourning black. The police chief suddenly hates her for no obvious reason. Plus there's someone running for office whose platform is all fearmongering against all super-powered individuals, especially those who wear masks to preserve their civilian life, like Astra does.
In other words, that intense, heart-wringing grief at the end of book one? Time jump so the author doesn't have to actually follow up on it, which would be understandable if they wanted to return everything to normal, but we don't get to go back to the generally optimistic feel of the first book either.
That said, there's still a lot of funny conversations and narrator observations. They carried me through a plot that could be summarized as "the world has gone to pot, and also here: have a Chicago Mob war. With superpowers."
(I loved the "BTW we're lesbian lovers" scene so much I read the entire thing out loud to my spouse, and we were both laughing like crazy.)
Officially, Astra is still part of Chicago Sentinels hero team. But since she doesn't confide in them until she has to, and she does a lot of stuff without authorization, it's really more of a solo adventure with a couple of friends helping out. And she's constantly berating herself for not having planned thoroughly enough, and yet she still keeps on going off half-cocked. It's kind of tedious.