Girls of Storm and Shadow: The mezmerizing sequel to New York Times bestseller Girls of Paper and Fire

As is often the case, I did not enjoy this as much as the first book in the series. We were still in the fantastic world that had been built in the first book, and there were additions to it in this one. However, things felt a little flat to me, like the author was running low on steam. Alternatively, it could be that I was finding it difficult to like some of the characters we were supposed to care about. Rather than happy go lucky, Bo felt obnoxious. Rather than proud, Merrin felt bitter. I started to dislike Lei as she came across as 'oh, this is all my fault, I am so useless, woe is me'. Even Wren became annoying after exploiting the full extent of her magic. So this book had an entirely different feel to me. Perhaps that was the intention, for the author to drag us into an emotional low point in order to make everything wonderful by the end of the trilogy. That's fine, when it's done with the plot points and all seems lost, IMO, but when you essentially character assassinate your heroes for the purpose, it feels all wrong. At least it did to me. I will read the last book because it seems a shame to abandon it, but I'm not as enthused about this series as I was at the start.

The last 150 pages or so of this picked up so good! I think in the middle, Girls of Storm and Shadow felt like it was suffering from middle-book-syndrome; and while it was good, I wasn’t dying to pick it up at all or feeling that motivated to read. But at around the 60% mark I was sucked right back in, hence raising my rating from a predicted 3 stars to 4.I also really liked the group of characters we were following with Lei, which is not something I felt was as present for me in Girls of Paper and Fire.Plus, my jaw just kept dropping, I was honestly not expecting lots of the twists in this book which made it pretty gripping towards the end, and I’m now very hyped up to read Girls of Fate and Fury in November (I say as if it didn’t take me literally like a year and a half to pick this up).

I liked how the characters; Wren and Lei are now out of the palace, but still in danger from soldiers and the King. It deals with the aftermath of the trauma they experienced at the palace and we see them go on a quest for allies and go on personal journeys too, with secrets discovered along the way.A new collection of characters are introduced too which are a great addition to the team, although would have liked to have heard more from other characters who stayed at the palace.Can’t wait to see how it will end in the conclusion when the next book comes out.

I did enjoy this book, I did however prefer the first one. I look forward to seeing how the third progresses the story.

The first book paper and fire was so unbelievable so good i just had to read the second, even better.