Summer Reading Begins

So, it's summer and I'm going to be trying to read and write more (as I've already mentioned). As pat of that, I'm reading the second book in the Fablehaven series. It's only been a few months since Mia bought the first one, so the story was still pretty fresh.

The second book is called Rise of the Evening Star. It picks up almost a year after the first book. The kids are just finishing their school year and hoping to go back to Fablehaven. Conveniently, they haven't run into trouble until the very last week of school.

Again, I don't want to walk through the plot, so I'll review other things. First, Brandon does a good job writing this book as a second episode.
If you've ever read the Hobbit, and then followed with the Lord of the Rings, you can clearly see how the world of Middle-earth expands in the LotR series. The Hobbit gives you a glimpse into a narrow piece of the world defined by the adventure episode. The trilogy expands on the world, taking the adventure to many new places and giving more depth to the world. Tolkien does this very well, which is why the LotR is still one of the foundations for many fantasy stories.

With that background, let me repeat. Rise of the Evening Star does a good job of being a second episode in the world. Some sequels (or second book of the standard fantasy trilogy) try to make the world too big. They add in too many new elements, making the reader keep track of the setting rather than being able to focus on the story in a now familiar world.
In this book, there are new elements, in fact some pretty significant ones, but by staying close to the Fablehaven preserve Brandon is able to add them without detracting from the flow.

Also, when I feel that his pacing has gotten better. The book started off with a nice action sequence. It moved well, and built up to a climatic scene that segued nicely into the main story. After that, he did slow down and spend quite a bit of time in exposition. Introducing new characters, adding some more depth to the secrets of Fablehaven, and exploring Kendra's changes.

I was talking with Mia about this the other day and what came out of our discussion was that I'm not the target audience. :) What we were talking about was the incredible self-awareness of the characters. They analyzed situations and their own feelings with a self-awareness that I certainly don't remember having as I muddled through middle school and high school.
But, as Mia pointed out, the adolescents that this book is written for probably do feel that they are that aware. And that they can analyze situations that rationally.

One thing I admire is that he includes questions at the end of the book aimed at his audience to help them do some critical thinking about what they've read. One of the questions was about a twist at the end of the book. It asks for some speculation about how this could play out in the next episode. Unfortunately, this twist broke some of my immersion. It felt like it was a plot device more than an organic, natural occurrence in the story. I'm going to reserve judgment until I read the final book (next year) but he's going to have to handle things very carefully to avoid being cliche.