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A review by ruzgofdi
Celebromancy by Michael R. Underwood
2.0
As good an amount and variety of pop culture references as was present in the first of the series, but with a lesser quality story.
The pace, for me, is all over the place with this one. It starts really slowly. Out of a twenty-three (well, twenty-two with an epilogue) chapter book, I don't really recall the fantasy element of this urban fantasy popping up until near the end of chapter 5. And the main plot doesn't actually get started until chapter 6. That's a lot of build up for a very short (under 300 page) book. Through the middle, we get a few chapters that seem to be day in the life type stuff that doesn't really advance this story much, but I can definitely see as set up for possible future books. And then we get to the other end of the book, where what I would call major developments to the universe and setting are glossed over because we're in the climax and we don't have time to explain.
The author was kind of hit or miss with fixing problems with the previous book. One of my complaints with the first book in the series was that the magic system was a little hard to follow. This time out, there's a decent enough explanation of the specifics that my inner rules lawyer was appeased. I was able to grasp why some things worked one way and other things didn't. And then we get a new type of magic that seems to work along the rules of being a famous deva: "I want it to work this way, so it's going to work this way". I commented that if you were paying attention with the previous book, a style choice would give away an important plot twist way in advance. This time out, the author doesn't so much try to fix this problem as embrace it. Instead of trying to hide the Big Bad from us, he takes one of the setting flavor pieces that start every chapter to have our main villain write an e-mail to his superiors to update them on the situation. And I think the character that I liked best from the last book ends up being little more than the ghost of Obi-wan this time around.
I still really like the first book. And I think there's some potential here for what could be a really entertaining series. I just kind of hope that Ree's brush with celebrity is over and we go back to her regularly scheduled geeky world.
The pace, for me, is all over the place with this one. It starts really slowly. Out of a twenty-three (well, twenty-two with an epilogue) chapter book, I don't really recall the fantasy element of this urban fantasy popping up until near the end of chapter 5. And the main plot doesn't actually get started until chapter 6. That's a lot of build up for a very short (under 300 page) book. Through the middle, we get a few chapters that seem to be day in the life type stuff that doesn't really advance this story much, but I can definitely see as set up for possible future books. And then we get to the other end of the book, where what I would call major developments to the universe and setting are glossed over because we're in the climax and we don't have time to explain.
The author was kind of hit or miss with fixing problems with the previous book. One of my complaints with the first book in the series was that the magic system was a little hard to follow. This time out, there's a decent enough explanation of the specifics that my inner rules lawyer was appeased. I was able to grasp why some things worked one way and other things didn't. And then we get a new type of magic that seems to work along the rules of being a famous deva: "I want it to work this way, so it's going to work this way". I commented that if you were paying attention with the previous book, a style choice would give away an important plot twist way in advance. This time out, the author doesn't so much try to fix this problem as embrace it. Instead of trying to hide the Big Bad from us, he takes one of the setting flavor pieces that start every chapter to have our main villain write an e-mail to his superiors to update them on the situation. And I think the character that I liked best from the last book ends up being little more than the ghost of Obi-wan this time around.
I still really like the first book. And I think there's some potential here for what could be a really entertaining series. I just kind of hope that Ree's brush with celebrity is over and we go back to her regularly scheduled geeky world.