Halo series, Book 2. Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan), 2011. Hardcover. 424 pp.
Bethany and Xavier are exulting in their newfound relationship, rejoicing that Gabriel and Ivy defeated Jake the demon by sending him back to the pit in “Halo.” Now, at a Halloween party Beth, as usual, ruins everything. She doesn’t have the guts to stand up to her girlfriends by just saying “no” when they ask her to participate in a seance. As a result, an evil spirit is unleashed and disappears. Soon afterwards, Xavier’s friend roars up to the party on a motorcycle saying Xavier is lying in a pool of blood. So, without even bothering to find out if it’s true, Beth becomes unhinged demanding to be taken to Xavier, and jumps onto the motorbike which, of course, is ridden by Jake. He was the evil spirit unleashed during the seance, and takes Beth off to Hell where he plans to make her his princess in his kingdom of darkness.
While Beth is stuck in Hell, Gabriel, Ivy, Molly and Xavier try their best to think up plans to rescue her. Beth spends her time resisting and ridiculing Jake, while readers receive ample descriptions of Adornetto’s version of Hell. Through their forced separation, Beth longs to be with Xavier but doesn’t have too much time to spend dreaming about their past lives because Lucifer is going to make sure she doesn’t get to have a life.
“Hades” has much more action than “Halo,” while Xavier turns out to be the star of the book. I actually enjoyed reading this more than “Halo” since I didn’t have to deal so much with Beth’s suffocating and whiny obsessiveness with Xavier. It ended on a very interesting cliffhanger, which means the ARC I picked up at ALA, “Heaven,” is going to be mighty interesting. Stay tuned.
You Decide: Should I Read it or Not? 