Wow. The Golden Spiral is the perfect example of why time travel—whether possible or not—should not be messed with! What a ride! We experience with Abby the horrors of having someone mess with your past—and it is not pretty! Zo is so angry with her, and you never know where he’ll strike next! The possibilities for change in the past/present/future are limitless and absolutely horrible in the hands of someone as ruthless as Zo! I loved watching how Abby dealt with everything that was thrown her way—she’s a girl who thinks well on her feet, and knows where to turn when she needs help! I like her as a character because of the fact that everything she does is driven by her need to help others instead of herself.
This book is even better than the first—it is a lovely young adult book, just like its predecessor The Hourglass Door. There are some vague parallels to many other popular YA novels (but not in a bad way), and a super intense cliffhanger, but it’s just so much fun!! Lisa Mangum proves once again that she is a master of tension and delivers a book full of crazy twists and turns that will make your head spin!
Content Analysis:
There is one moderate exclamation of profanity (telling a ‘bad guy’ where to go…) and one very mild instance (mentioning a place).
The violence is usually very mild. It consists mostly of threats, being followed, etc. There is one moderate instance where a character with a knife attacks two others: One is blinded and the other is killed. A character plans to kill another to stop him. A character changes another’s past in order to alter the reality and make it awful.
There are some mild kissing moments between two characters.
Mature Subject Matter:
The mild mature themes include friendship and loyalty. The more moderate themes include time travel and its’ devastating effects in the wrong hands, revenge, mental illness (we see, often, the character who went mad in the first novel, and it is at times a little unnerving), and dealing with overwhelming circumstances.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
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