Does everything need to have a sequel? After 304 pages, my answer is both yes and no.

I love The Guncle. I wept through the last 100 pages of The Guncle and even though I read it last year, I remembered very little of it. 'The Guncle Abroad' didn't quite capture the magic of the first book for me, but it was fun nonetheless. Did it need to exist? Not really. Was it a delight? Of course it was, it's Steven Rowley. I felt the book was oddly paced and the whole trope of the reason the kid's don't want the wedding to go ahead was held off for far too long and then made very little sense when it was finally revealed. Largely, because it was pretty easily solved. There wasn't the same emotional growth from these characters that the first book had and so it left everything feeling a bit...shallow. As if there was more depth that could be scraped and it just wasn't. Also the launt joke just kind of fell flat after a while. What was the point of this conflict?

Nevertheless. I had a fun time reading it. And that's really half the battle.