I am glad that I continued on with the series. After the first one ended I was very confused to what was going on but still intrigued enough to pick the second one up. The story line is becoming a bit more clear to me now and I am enjoying the characters more. There are parts that are both visually and mentally creepy and my skin was crawling more than once. I am excited to see the story continue. Well this jumped the shark in a hurry. After a solid, intriguing opening volume, Sturges throws all the buildup and character work right out the window with this insane volume. He piles on new plot developments and characters so fast, you can't keep up, and doesn't give any of them enough life for you to give a single damn about any of them. For instance, we get Fig's dad showing up out of nowhere having never been mentioned once in the previous volume, and nobody seems the least bit perplexed by this. He's just there, reveals he can travel between worlds, Fig is not all that surprised, and that's it. Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you.Additionally, the character work takes a real dive in this volume. For instance, Fig becomes completely infatuated with Harry out of nowhere. He's done nothing to earn this, and yet there's an entire section where Fig just thinks about how much she wants him to hold her. It's weird, empty, and a little sexist, since Fig can't even focus on the terrifying monsters trying to kill her because she's so caught up daydreaming about having sex with Harry, the guy she's talked to about twice.Even as a standalone story this one doesn't work. There's something called the Bete Noir living in the House of Mystery's basement, and the gang has to go down and face it in an effort to see if there's a way out of the house. The buildup to the Bete Noir is pretty big, continually saying that it's a horrifying monster that traps anyone it touches in an eternal loop which they will never escape. Well, spoiler alert, that never happens. The Bete Noir is a real shitty monster that gets beaten in no time with no effort or logic as to how they manage to defeat it.I'll stick with this series a bit longer, but it's starting to already feel like it's losing its grip on what made it cool and unique in the first place.
Do You like book Love Stories For Dead People (2009)?
A nice continuation, with some attention to background, character, and continuity alike.
—Qtpie_casey
Nifty, plot-thickeny, smartish, and verging on tuggy. In a word, shiny!
—alexstar
