Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Trailer Park Trickster

Just as fun and creative as the first.

Adam Binder is a young man with a gift, one that often feels like a curse. Now a full warlock, though not as powerful as the one he is still tracking, Adam is a called home to Oklahoma by his aunt's cat. Something is wrong and he's on his way, without even calling his boyfriend, or his job.

Again in this book we get a journey, but the journey this time is told through the perspective of Vic as he journeys from Denver to Guthrie with Argent the Elf. Vic is coming to terms with being a reaper and learning about Adam and the spirit world. While he grapples with this, Adam grapples with his family history and his new relationship with his mom and brother, who have both followed him to Guthrie. Can he have a new life in Denver and who is the warlock and how is he related to Adam, and further, what is wrong with his cousin? Midway through the internal conflict becomes external with Vic finding himself witness to a secret plot from the sea elves to overtake the Court of Swords, Adam discovers the warlock is after his cousin, and Vic discovers the secret about Adam's dad that has been hidden from him.

I really liked how Vic became a main character, how his and Adam's relationship was explored and how the family trauma was shown to run deep, back generations. Adam is still deeply scarred from his upbringing, but not enough that he can't start to trust and watching how Vic handles that was very touching. These two characters are so respectful of each other and I appreciate how Vic being bi is handled and presented.

Overall, a wonderful YA hero story with a bit of magic and journey vibes.

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jennyg1234's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

It dragged a little, but Loved the ending! I’m ready for book 3

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wardenred's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

He had no prayers. He had no gods, and the closest things he’d met to them were jerks.

Well, this was... pretty different from the first book, even though it's a direct continuation of the same story. A lot of the things I enjoyed about White Trash Warlock are still here: the awesome "parallel worlds" setting with its awesome rules, the Tarot-themed elven courts, the magic, the complex politics between all the supernatural beings, and that whole vibe of big powers placing people as pawns on a cosmic chessboard. I very much enjoyed Adam's storyline, the juxtaposition/intersection of the mundane and the magical in the mystery plot that follows his aunt's death, and the way he continued reforging bonds with his estranged family.

What I didn't love was the other part of the story. I liked Vic in the previous book, but once he become a prominent POV character, a lot of the engagement kind of fell away. Somehow, he turned out to be flatter than I expected. I wasn't a fan of "splitting the party" and having Vic wander off a lot into the elven lands without Adam. I think a big part of that was that it was more boring to see those magical landscapes from the POV of a near-complete outsider, someone discovering this stuff for himself for the first time. Through Adam's eyes, all those dangerous wonders had an added mistique because he was already familiar with them and *still* constantly discovering something new. I would've also preferred to see certain big events in Arden's and Silver's storylines through Adam's eyes rather than Vic's, because while Vic does build his own rapport with both of them, it can't beat Adam's dynamic with Arden developed in the first book, or what Adam's history with Silver adds to their present interactions. Adam's relationship with Vic also kind of meandered throughout the book, and not just while they spent those big chunks of time apart, but when they were together in a scene, too.

Honestly, the way the split into two POVs here was a disappointment compared to the POV split in the book one, because here it was mainly just "A is here doing X, B is there doing Y, then X and Y storylines intersect," which is a pretty normal thing to do for sure! Except compared to how Bobby's chapters in the first book turned Adam into an unreliable narrator and vise versa and showcased how different a shared history can be... it just felt flat.

Nevertheless, there were a lot of intriguing moving parts to the plot, a lot of unanswered questions that I'd love to figure out the answers to, and once again, a tense cliffhanger. So I very much intend to finish the trilogy. I also suspect that a lot of the weaknesses I saw in this book wouldn't bother me so much if I wasn't comparing it to all the things the first book did better!

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pvbobrien's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

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directorpurry's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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morbidlyobtuse's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

Loved it. This second novel goes on where the first left off and widens not only the development of the characters, but also builds the world up more.

I've rapidly become invested in everything that happens with Adam and his family, and I'm looking forward to the third novel.

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