Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: The evil step-mother returns in this dark teen drama to take on a new victim, from the inside, and she’s never been more desperate to succeed.

Opening Sentence: A two-faced moon hung over the black-and-white city, in turns shining as bold as the sun and hiding, shamed, behind the veil of cirrus clouds.

The Review:

The best part of this book is probably the idea for this book. The storyline is extremely well-thought out, as is every book in the Another series on account of its highly intelligent authors. They once again succeed in taking their original premise, combining it with the plot of a well-known classic, and combining it with all the characters to make Another Jekyll, Another Hyde into something completely new and interesting. As part of the Another trilogy, this book probably could be read apart from the series, but not nearly as well as the second. There are many more references to events and characters in Another Faust, so many parts of the plot rely on the plot and premise of the first book. The Nayeris did carry over the atmosphere of the series to each book in the trilogy. We once again see a mostly internal dilemma existing in this book, as hinted at by the title.

Because so much of this book is interesting and thoughtful, it is rather difficult to pinpoint exactly why it fell a little short, but I would have to say it was mostly a lack of character focus. Although the main character, Thomas, is somewhat likeable, much more so than any of the characters in Another Faust, he still remains somewhat elusive. We almost learned more about him and the cause of his vulnerability in Another Faust than we do in Another Jekyll, Another Hyde, but we lose any progression with Thomas and Belle, who was supposedly the love of his life. The situation with her really screwed him up, but whether it was an addiction to her potions or a true love that would have persisted even after she gave up her perfect looks, we will never know. The way the book is written, especially starting out and ending from the perspective of Nicola Vileroy, just makes it hard to get close to Thomas. It makes the book more about Nicola, but then we run into a few issues even with that. We just do not learn enough about Nicola in this book to capture us, and we just never learn enough about Thomas to really appreciate his strength or his perfection. Thomas isn’t close enough to any of the other characters, romantically or otherwise, to really let us escape into the world of the Marlowe School either. His best friend, Collin, seems to appear at opportune moments to move the plot along, and he doesn’t even like his girlfriend, so it is difficult for anyone else to either. Thomas’s relationship with his father is probably the most interesting, but is less than detailed.

As in Another Faust, there is a lot more high school social scene drama than there is action or romance in this book, which left it just a little dry for a paranormal book. An interesting twist is that Nicola still seems to let her victims make their own original decisions to become victims. We never learn throughout the series why exactly that is, and it intrigues me that she coerces others instead of just forcing them to do whatever she wants them to, and it would be interesting to find out more about her rules and limitations, and why she even keeps limits on herself, for personal reasons, or perhaps for reasons beyond her control? We never find out anything about her relationship with Thomas’s father and how exactly it came about in the first place.

Although, as mentioned, there are many questions throughout that could have been answered to allow us to really understand the characters, the ending to Another Jekyll, Another Hyde is very tidy. Some readers would appreciate that, but for how mysterious the entire series is, it would seem more natural to leave the reader with a little something more to think about. The first and second books of the trilogy ended rather vaguely to allow for the next story, and although a cliffhanger would have been all wrong, we aren’t really left with anything to cling to, no hints of what the future holds for Thomas or anyone else. Overall, this book had a good plotline and decent characters, but just could have used more follow-through. It was definitely entertaining and if you enjoyed the rest of the series you would definitely enjoy the third book.

Notable Scene:

“What is it?” said Thomas. “What are you babbling about? Give me my pill!”

John didn’t look up. He clutched his bloody arm with his other hand. The W was soaked in blood, but it rested there, unharmed. Thomas could see it now. Slowly, the blood was disappearing.

The scratch on John’s hand was healing, all the way up his arm.

“What’s going on?” said Thomas.

John’s face had gone completely white. “I know what’s in the pill!”

FTC Advisory: Candlewick Press provided me with a copy of Another Jekyll, Another Hyde. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

This book was a really interesting take on the classic story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. But be warned! This book is a third in a series, which I did not realize until I had already started it. Still, the story was really interesting, and although I do feel like I missed part of the action from the first two, this book in itself is really entertaining.

One really nice thing about this story is that the characters use things like Twitter and Facebook on their phones, and that modern technology is quite evident in the book - something that is important for a modern version of an old tale. Although the first Tweet in the book is a little awkward, the rest are imbedded flawlessly into the storyline, and unlike a lot of other books, the technology is really well written.

Still, the technology doesn't steal away from the internal battle between the two characters, and the struggle against the evil stepmother. The overall storyline was really intriguing, and I enjoyed the two different characters that are written for the same body. For anyone who enjoys retellings of stories, this is a great read. ( )