BagEndBooks

Because of the timing of midterms and other obstacles, I was not able to finish this book as quickly as the I Am Margaret, though I still enjoyed it immensely.

Margo was strong as ever. I think she actually grew quite a bit in this book. I still feel that, to some degree, she sees Bane through a rose-colored lens, but at least I was seeing the goodness in him, rather than just being told about it. I'm glad Margo got her birth-control chip out of her at the end. I guess they're just lucky the government hadn't started putting in tracking chips yet.

Bane is still rather annoying, though, like I said, I can see his goodness now. He certainly grew a lot in this book. He has gotten to the point that, while still protective of Margo (which is a good thing) it no longer feels so much like he is overprotective. I do wish he would go to an anger-management class though.

I still like Jon better than I like Bane. He didn't descend completely into self pity, which is something that I had feared at the end of the first book. I mean, he has his moments when he is clearly just feeling sorry for himself, but mostly he seemed to be keeping up his character-strength, even while loosing his bodily strength. It did seem odd that he got shot twice, and he was weaker than the other two. I understand that he was blind, which would make walking an unfamiliar path much more difficult, but in the other book I felt that his athleticism and bodily strength were pretty well established, so I felt that his exhaustion may have been slightly exaggerated. I really hope he finds happiness by the end of this series.

I'm glad we finally got to meet Kyle. I look forward to seeing him more in the next book, and maybe meeting Jon's sister? And both Margo and Jon's families. I really like Father Mark. I guess you have to be strong to be a priest during a time when being a priest could result in an extremely painful death. I think that Pope Cornelius is incredible, I can't wait to find out more about him. I knew what Cardinal Hans was going to do long before Margo and the rest of them found out. And I thought this was really sad because in the extremely short time that I knew Cardinal Hans he seemed really nice, and I would have liked to get to know him better. Plus, both Margo and the pope will probably feel guilty about his death, even if it was his choice.

I hope to see Juwan and Dominique again. They were another set of interesting characters that we didn't get to know very well, and I'm still hoping to get to know Jane better than we did in the first book.

Even though I believe I have adequately expressed the fact that I like Jon more than Bane, I am extremely grateful that Corinna Turner is not approaching the difficult matter of Jon's feelings for Margo as a love triangle. There was a brief moment at the beginning of the book when I could see how the relationships could go that way, but then the author steered us safely away from that path, showing that, while she loves Jon very much as a friend, Margo never had any romantic feelings for him. Once in a great while I appreciate a good love triangle, but they are a fad that is overdone far too much lately, so it's nice to have a book that does not lead us too deeply down that plot line.

These books are stressful (in a good way) and I want to know what will happen next. If only there wasn't so much school work. Sigh. I can Identify with this song right now.