I realized I'd skipped one of these when I read Golden in Death, so there I went to pass a bit more time and another roll of Snakes & Ladders.

There was nothing new on this one case-wise, and little on Eve's people front but for and encore from Mavis.

Meh.

What there was of mystery was pretty much solved about a half way in, and the rest was spinning, but whatever. It's been a while since I go through these for background entertainment while I do other stuff. It certainly never taxes my brain too much.

I really liked the moment where Peabody goes nuclear, and the tree thing was cute.

Even more meh. And I'll still will keep going through these because they are damn comfortable after 50 volumes.

It reads like one of those ambitious, great-ideas fanfictions written by a painfully young person. Acceptable grammar, cool premise, needs serious editing.

This is, at best, a first rough draft, and it is a real pity that it was published as is. There are other issues (Mary Sue, general shallowness, a judgemental omniscient POV that is a stand in for the author's opinions), but they are not real drawbacks from what could have been a solid 3 stars comfort read, so if there was an editing team on this publishing house, they did this work a serious disservice.

Because I'm a sucker for this type of adventures, I'm still reading, and can say that the worst of the bloating gets a bit pared down by book three. Quality of writing is still the same, but it's neater.

Well, that ended on an unexpected note. Despite how HARD I rolled my eyes through many points (i.e. the sexy segments, and the blurt out our past and wounds, and the hit you love you) for sheer teen-angst intensity, I'm somewhat interested in what follows. I mean, we are past the AWESOME FIRST ORGASM, and the first blushes of ONE (FIRST) TRUE LOVE! (what? I can totally use caps, they are serious business here). I imagine I'd be setting myself for a lot of I CAN'T BE WITH MY BELOVED angst for volume two, though, so not sure yet. Might be that volume three is worth it? So little time, so many books. Maybe if I want another fry in my next slump.

A lot of how this one will be taken depends on how much you can accept the protagonist's view of things. There are some fine and healthy bits of hypocrisy. Healthy because, to my to my sensibilities, hard cut and unbending stances are unmerciful at best, inhuman at worst.

Anyway *waves away*

I was entertained. I like it when the books focus on the characters friendships, and there was a lot of talk on loyalty. I'm also a bit amused by this trend where the dead body was a poor excuse for a human being. It says quite a bit about a hopeful outlook of humanity, where the ones getting killed are the despicable creatures that push everyones buttons beyond the limit.

Not as great a time killer as the first volumes, but better than the one before.