A review by amywarnes
Inside The Maelstrom: Part Two by Grace McGinty

adventurous

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

2.5

This book was kind of underwhelming after the first. The pacing felt off, like the whole thing was just one really long epilogue to the first book instead of being a book with its own structure. I feel like the duet probably would have worked better as a single book. Lots of stuff in this book just kind of dragged and could have been cut, too. It was like logically the author felt she had to cover certain things to tie up the story but they were just boring to read, like the meeting with Aviva's parents.

Also it's a minor detail but it's so random how Aviva suddenly starts wearing glasses in this one? It's like they liked the image for the cover but the model was wearing glasses so they decided to just chuck in a couple of refrences to her wearing glasses to retrospectively make that part of her description?

I wouldn't even say the book was actively bad, just so bland it really didn't add much on to the first.