A review by booknerd1977
Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune

3.0

I’m beyond disappointed with this book. I gave the first book 5 stars, something that is pretty rare for me. As multiple other reviewers have stated, the plot this book felt somewhat like a rehash of the first book. I’m not sure it added much to the original story. While I loved revisiting the characters that I met in the first book, they felt more one dimensional in the sequel. It was as if the children were fairly interchangeable for much of the story. It also felt that most of them had aged decades based on how they spoke (Sal in particular). I still love Talia and Chauncey, but it wasn’t quite the same. As others have said, I love this author’s message and think that it is super important. However, this sequel was too preachy and felt that the message was being shouted at me every other page. We, as readers, already agree with the message and are along for the ride, so why did most of this book feel like we were being yelled at. It was just too much. While many fiction books (even fantasy) have political messages, this felt like it took a place the forefront, not as a secondary storyline. Very different feel from the first book. If I wasn’t already so invested after the first book, I may have rated this even lower.