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.