Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Wayward Son

This book is dark! Be prepared to be at the edge of your seat the whole time, and be desperate for the third book afterwards.

Wayward Son shows Simon, Baz and Penelope in a new light, and a completely different world! If the first book, Simon and Penelope have magic and can hold their own in a fight, Baz too. But here, they are completely unmatched but extremely lucky!! Every situation, every fight, they are either completely defeated or won but beaten up to exhaustion. They are broken and depressed and dragging their feet as they travel through this book, which made me feel helpless.

Even the finale was crazy because they completely got lucked out with the Talkers just randomly showing up. It wasn’t completely random as it’s all Agatha was talking about in the book, but damn! They are all bleeding and in pain at the end, which doesn’t make it feel like a victory at all!!
This makes me extremely nervous for the characters, as they are not good heroes anymore. They can’t do anything right, and even Penelope has no plan which is completely a left field! I actually don’t feel as strongly attached to the characters anymore compared with the first book. <Spoilers> Penelope is an arrogant ‘know it all’ who actually is just a child who knows nothing, Simon is a broken human who has lost his reason for life but is brash and jumps into trouble every second he can. I was absolutely furious with Simon for this, wanted to smack him and tell him ‘sit down!’ And Baz did the most growth as to finding about more about himself, but he’d tided down to my most hated troupe; strained relationships over miscommunication……..

Other thing that stressed me out was the fact that every group hates eachother for biases that they created. Everyone is doing wrong things and blaming the other groups for their misfortunes. It made me realised that there is no good guy in these books, that I don’t root for the vampires, the mages orange creatures. I don’t even root for Simon!

I can’t wait for book 3

Content Warnings

francestea's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Great second books are few, and this one makes a valiant effort. I really enjoyed catching up with our characters again. The plot is pushed forward by a road trip which I often find a little boring (and then this happened, and then this happened, etc.), but Wayward Son was pretty good. Simon is a lot like Harry Potter in book 5- angsty/traumatized - but Baz, Penelope, and their new buddy Shepard more than make up for it. Definitely worth a read if you enjoyed the first.

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claudiamacpherson's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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dillybar20's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

(Copied and pasted from my Goodreads review)

Excellent book! I only have 3 thoughts.
#1 I know America is a dangerous place but the hits never really stopped coming there was no down time and I would have like to see Baz and Simon with some time to spare mostly to talk. The only time they really had to do that was in the back of the truck and it was too windy.

#2 Penelope never learned her lesson to value other people's opinions. It was a whole book with no character development which is fine for Baz and Simon as there is a much bigger reason behind it that might take another book to sort out but Penny really should have grown up here. Will she ever develop as a person? Or is she going to be stuck in high school forever, wardrobe colours and all?

#3 Penny is a very organized person I do not believe that she never plotted out their itinerary on a map first. I know she's from England and it's very small but she plans too much to make a mistake like she did. It's unbelievable.

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sabinehunter's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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notpresent22's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book is a very solid middle book. I’ll confess if it wasn’t for the characters who I have deeply loved since reading Carry On I doubt I would rate the book this high but I am biased.
As before Rowells dialogue is funny and concise and the plot is perfectly fine. It does however make you feel like the story is incomplete and as I read and finished this before the third book was announced I was left somewhat disappointed in the conclusion. However with the context of the third book this is a perfect segue. Bridging the gap between books and offering a new backdrop to the adventures of our four main characters after Watford

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breadbees's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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