Spectre, Phaedra Weldon
well.. this one was sort of just lying there, and i'd had it out from the library for about 2 months now. i don't even know how much i'm going to have to pay for overdue fees, but i'll deal with that later. what i want to say about this one is that it totally caught me off guard, especially since i was so AGAINST the first book, and convinced that nothing would come out of this read. obviously--pretty off there.
zoe the character still bugs me. she's a woman in her twenties acting like an 8 year old, and that still sort of applies throughout this book--though i see making her mute definitely had its advantages. her voice isn't entirely without entertainment throughout the book, but when i was entertained it most certainly felt like the author was trying REALLY hard to put humor into her writing. there are darker elements to this book than the last one, and the darker parts read well to me--which hints to me that she is more practiced as a serious writer, and should probably try to steer clear of the attempted humor and odd infusements of "oogy" every paragraph. it does grate on the nerves, and just the inclusion of that word ruins the flow of the text, which would have otherwise been actually pretty good. i think dialogue isn't really her strong point, but seeing that this one is much better than the last installment, i guess i can say that she is improving pretty fast.
as for characters: zoe is still annoying to me, but she's a bit more mature in this one, and i can't describe exactly what it is--she still acts out with teenage rampants from time to time, but sometimes i actually find her acting like the woman in her 20s she's supposed to be. there is certainly character development, which shocked me--although the character daniel is admittedly two dimensional, and so lacked appeal for me. joe, on the other hand.. could really see how that could build up to something in whatever next book there will be. although the end does leave you wondering, i can't help but be drawn to joe, since, again, daniel has been cardboard cutout material for me so far.
i wonder what the development will be with the archer. and i do like what's going on with her and her powers. the scene with the clown completely freaked the crap out of me, and so yes, she can manage serious very well. i hope she can carry it off just as smoothly in the next installation, although they really need to assign her better copyeditors--"shouldn't of"? "hadn't of"? come on.
on to sleep then. and more acting (or screaming) done tomorrow.
