Book: Miss Mayhem by Rachel Hawkins

Published April 2015 by Penguin Young Readers Group|208 pages

Source/Format: borrow the e-book from the library

Series: Rebel Belle #2

Genre: YA Paranormal/Re-telling

What It’s About:

Life is almost back to normal for Harper Price. The Ephors have been silent after their deadly attack at Cotillion months ago, and best friend Bee has returned after a mysterious disappearance. Now Harper can return her focus to the important things in life: school, canoodling with David, her nemesis-turned-ward-slash-boyfie, and even competing in the Miss Pine Grove pageant.

Unfortunately, supernatural chores are never done. The Ephors have decided they’d rather train David than kill him. The catch: Harper has to come along for the ride, but she can’t stay David’s Paladin unless she undergoes an ancient trial that will either kill her…or connect her to David for life.

What I Thought:

Rebel Belle is one I have mixed feelings about.  I liked it, and it was fun and funny but after reading this one, I feel like the first book was a lot better as a stand-alone- unless there’s a third book that manages to be totally awesome, because even though I liked Miss Mayhem, I think I also would have been fine not reading this one.

The thing is, I just didn’t care about the Ephors or Harper and David and the trials and finally knowing what happened to Bee.  It just didn’t live up to the expectations I had going into it.  I was expecting more action, and it felt like it really dragged for most of the book.

For pretty much the entire book, I felt like it didn’t really add to what happened in the first book, and is basically just trying to get us to the next book.  Which is disappointing, because I had so much fun reading Rebel Belle and I wanted more of that.

I did find myself with questions, like what happened to the Ephors?  Seriously, I want to know.  And what is in store for Harper and crew, with how everything ended?  I think it brought up more questions than answers.

I had some high hopes for Harper and David, but I didn’t really care about what happened.  I understand why things happened the way they did, but overall, I just didn’t care that things ended the way they did.  It is such a cliffhanger, so if you’re not a fan of cliffhangers, you may want to wait until the next one comes out to read this one.

Rating:

3 stars.  I don’t really have a lot to say about it, and nothing really stands out, even though I just read it.  It was fun, but I didn’t love it either.