14 | February | 2017 | By Hook Or By Book

Tags

Paranormal Fiction, Relationships, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Candlewick Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: February 14th, 2016

215 Pages

Synopsis: Last fall, Cynthia Rothschild saved her best friend, as well as the entire student body, from the demon librarian, Mr. Gabriel, all while executing the most awesome set design for the school musical, Sweeney Todd. But now that all the demon stuff is behind her, Cyn is looking forward to the best summer ever at theater camp with her former-crush-and-now-boyfriend, Ryan Halsey. Once she gets to camp though, Cyn realizes this summer might not be all she’s been hoping for. First, Ryan’s best camp friend is a girl (which Ryan has never mentioned to Cyn) and she just happens to be ridiculously pretty. Plus, it seems the demon stuff is not entirely over as Cyn had hoped. At least any new demons that show up to ruin her summer can’t possibly be as evil as Mr. Gabriel. It’s not like he could somehow come back to life to seek his terrible revenge or something.

I really enjoyed The Evil Librarian, so I was looking forward to this sequel. Unfortunately this has a lot more relationship drama ( including an annoying love quadrangle) without the campy fun that made the first book so enjoyable. Cyn continues to be loyal and protective of her friends, but this protectiveness veers into more controlling behavior when she starts keeping secrets and takes it upon herself to make decisions for them instead. Unsurprisingly, this causes problems not only in regards to friendships, but also adds to the danger that pops up this time around. The aforementioned love quadrangle drove me a little nuts. Cyn spends much of the book moaning and whining over her boyfriend Ryan’s friendship with a girl he’d known for years through the camp, yet she herself harbors some feelings for another camp member. The whole thing came off as hypocritical to say the least. And finally, there’s Mr. Gabriel aka The Evil Librarian, who was thought to have been vanquished, yet proves in this book that you can’t keep a good, er, bad, demon down. While he was scarily funny in the previous story, in this one he’s pretty much a one-dimensional character who’s lost the snarkiness which made him so appealing to begin with. The ending makes it seem likely that there will be a third book, and if this is the case, I hope it contains more of the humor that made The Evil Librarian such a hit. In my humble opinion, Revenge of the Evil Librarian isn’t a bad book, just a disappointing one, that didn’t quite live up to its predecessor.

Tags

Humor, Loss of internet

So, another day, another blizzard for the North Shore of MA. Blah, blah, blah. We’re hardy New Englanders! We can take whatever Mother Nature throws at us! I mean, we didn’t even lose our electricity, so what’s to complain about? Well, then this happened when I woke up this morning:

Huh. I thought to myself. No problem. I’m sure Comcast will be back up and running soon. While I’m waiting I’ll get some reading in.

And then the hours just kept ticking by with still no service.

I knew things were bad when not even binge watching Harry Potter dvds helped.

I went from being slightly annoyed to completely frazzled! I couldn’t get to my blog, watch tv, or even find out if Trump invaded Mexico overnight!

By mid afternoon my poor husband was probably picturing me as this:

I honestly wouldn’t have blamed him if he had dumped some cold water on me!

And then, Thank God, our service came back on about 6:00 p.m. ANNND ten minutes later went back out again!

Finally though, it seems to be back up and running, *fingers crossed!*

One thing that today’s taught me is that I’m completely lost without the internet. Yep. In addition to being a book addict, I’m an internet addict also!

But that’s a worry for another day. I just wanted to apologize for replying so late to comments and missing everyone’s posts. I missed you guys and I’ll do my best to catch up!