This series continues to engage me. There is lots of action, treachery, friendship, loyalty, and strategy. I love that different mythologies and creatures are woven into the story and am already onto #3.

Very exciting!!

I knew Neff had somewhere interesting to go. Yes, the similarities are there in the beginning, but once it gets going, it veers off in a completely different direction. I really liked it.

There were a couple pentacles and things, went farther than JK Rowling did; I think just over the edge most parents would be comfortable with. It's a shame cause it's interesting (though this second book wandered all over).

I got this book as a strip from when I worked at Barnes and Noble. So for me it was free, and I'm glad I didn't pay for this.

Again this series suffers from too much. Too many people, too many places, too much explanation, too much action, too much of everything. There is also not enough. We learn Max and David are officially special, though not how or why, or what it means. Max goes to some weird (fae?) realm and he trains for months, it's super important that he did this the training altered him as a person. Do we know what he did do we know what he learned, do we know why? NO --

This book really needed to be cut in half and edited. Take out a third of the characters, half the random trips and give us some details as to why I need to care about any of this. We learn there are witches, what do they do? Not a clue. We learn there is a super scientific organization that is a lot of 'Brave New World' -- and yet if we never went there at all the story would not have changed at all. And I think that is part of this book (and the first book) issue. There is so much that happens, but if you removed these things from the story it doesn't change the characters, their motivations, any of that. And if nothing changes when you take out part of the story, then why is it there?

This book was ok. I have the third one as a strip and so I'll read that, but I don't know if I'll ever finish the series out. For sixth grade on up looking for a book with magic, and fighting.

If you like Harry Potter, you might enjoy this series as there are a lot of similarities.

The Second Siege picked up some time after the first book ended. And while I feel like there could be a really interesting story here, I had a lot of the same problems I had with the first book.

The author continued the trend of skipping over what I felt would have been the most interesting or important plot points. The amount of time that passes in these first two books is almost indeterminable, and as a result the events that happen manage to feel very rushed and also extremely drawn out. I don’t know how to explain it. Max acts in no way like a 14? year old kid - except when he needs to “make mistakes”. The interactions with the villain don’t make a lot of sense yet, but I’m honestly not quite willing to read the next book.

There seems to be no hope in this book, and no possible way for our heroes to win. But I feel that part of that is because we’re never really shown or told anything about the powers that our heroes have. I know that David is a powerful sorcerer, but nothing is done to explain why he’s special, and we’re two books into this. Max is super strong and a great warrior, but I’m still miffed at missing his whole development - it all happens “off-page”. The big bad guy has literally already taken over the world in a manner of days? weeks? months? and Rowan Academy is the last safe hold left.

The main issue with this book seems to be cramming too much story into too few words, which is frustrating because there are so many amazing elements to the story. Maybe in a few months I’ll continue on with the series, but for now I’m taking a step back from it. I think it could still really be someone else’s cup of tea, so if you’ve made it this far and are still considering I’d recommend giving it a try for yourself. You might like it more than I did.

BETTER THAN THE FIRST IF THATS EVEN POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love love love love love it :D