Oh, my heart...

I've never read the middle of a trilogy novel this good.

I tried to read it slowly. That didn't work. (It didn't work with the first one, either.)

Arden St. Ives is an (cutely wickedly goofily) emotionally intelligent man, and that's never clearer than in this second novel which, as the title warns, is the middle of the story and yet also contains such soaring joy that when the shoe drops, it is a lot like the plummet of a broken elevator. I mean, you know there's darkness in Caspian's past, but ... damn.

I wanted to wait to read this one until closer to August, when the third novel's released. But I did not listen to myself. Now I have to wait. [Imagine here the biggest, slowest, most heart-felt sigh you can.]

If you have not read #1, just read the e-sample of it. ( )

This was good enough, but not as good as the first one. ( )

Oh Caspian. :( ( )

So, honestly, I am a fan of this series. I mean yeah, sometimes the sex descriptions are a little too, ahem, raw for me...like in a weird "that is too much anatomy" way for me. And in this book, Caspian was a little too I don't know, self-defeating, but also there are these things, wonderful things, that make it seem like there was assignment in comp 101 for twilight fan fic and you're an instructor grading and you're thinking, "holy shit this kid's got something," and you just read the FSOG series and gave E.L. James a D- because at least she strung some words and paragraph breaks together and let's be honest that whole tampon scene was disgustingly memorable. And also, you can tell the plan of these two was the same but that Alexis Hall isn't even hating on E.L. James's obviously inferior, painfully inferior work, and you know, you just know, that when he has Ellery mention that she want's to get away from a classic music festival before some sappy Debussy gets played it was obvious that this effort is neither separate nor self-conscious.

I think I've explained enough my feelings on FSOG in the first review And now I've gone so far afield on actually reviewing the book, but it's a middle book. It roughly follows the plan. There's despair in this book. Caspian's mystery and pathology is slowly revealed, so is his romance and his regard. Where he's different from Christian is that he's utterly, endearingly self-conscious and embarrassed discussing sex-related things. Not in the moment, that'd be annoying, but he's always blushing. So yeah, he's blushing dom. He's not a detached narcissist, quite the opposite, I'd argue.

However, Arden remains far more known, the novels are from his perspective, in his voice. He is innocent, yet wicked, and he knows his worth. He's transparent about feelings, but not enough to feel stupid or self-sacrificing. He's a great balance to the emotionally wounded and cut off Caspian, and the result is a great balance, where the protagonists express their vulnerability in opposite ways.

I really did laugh throughout this book, even though it was a bit darker than I recall the first being. I did want to dive headlong into the 3rd, but I can wait the 22 days until it releases. Or I'll have to anyway.

Note, there's a ton of sex. In the beginning it felt like it could be too much, especially considering that this book absolutely shines when the characters (any of them) interact. I didn't mind all the sex, but just throwing that out there...in case you do. 4.5 from me. ( )

I was really here for the first like 90% of the book. Arden still trying to figure out his post-college dreams and being with Caspian.

And then the end happened and like...what? It felt so out of place, so quick. I'm not really happy with it because it felt like it was just drumming up some major drama for the end of the book when it didn't really feel like it fit every single thing that had happened up to that point in two books. ( )