4 stars. I liked this book, just not quite as much as the first one. It had an interesting story line and I loved the characters, but the plot just didn’t draw me in like the first book did. I kind of saw the ending coming and while there were still surprises I just wasn’t as sucked in. Still it was a good story and I am still interested in reading the third book.
I still liked Kaylee and her stubbornness and concern for others, but she was a little too hard on herself about the bad things that happened to other people. She seemed to think it was her responsibility to save these girls, even though it’s not her fault that they died or chose to sell their souls. There are also a few places where some really dumb decisions made, and I couldn’t completely understand why the characters made the choices they did. For example, Kaylee gets cut by this poisonous plant but she thinks she can wait to take care of it, even though it really hurts and she knows it can kill her. I think she was being a little too selfless. Also I thought Addy could have tried harder to keep her sister from signing that contract. Why didn’t she show her her eyes? There was some confusion with just what souls are in this book. Are we souls, or are we bodies with souls? When Addy sells her soul and has it replaced with Demon’s Breath it seems that we are bodies and souls are just things we have, but the concept of the last book and a lot of this one is that souls are important and that they are who we are. This is why it’s such a bad thing for Addy to die without one. I was just confused as to what the soul is in context of the story.
One thing I really liked about this book was the Netherworld. I was fascinated with it and the creatures that existed there. It was the one thing about this story that was really new and interesting. I felt like in the beginning of this book there was a lot of time spent re-capping what happened in the first book. I think this would have been good had I not read the first book, but since I had, and done so shortly before starting this one it got redundant for me. Also I felt like the ending was a little predictable, but I was glad that it wasn’t a happy-go-lucky, everything is find kind of ending. And, I did really like the conversation between Kaylee and Tod. That last little piece where they speak at the graveyard left me wanting to read the third book.