Everything Put Together Falls Apart - Paul Simon

Ascendant
Killer Unicorns, Book 1

Author: Diana Peterfreund
Genre: fantasy, young adult
Pages: 392
ARC Acquired From: HarperCollins Author Signing at ALA 2010

In deference to the fact that describing a sequel is really hard to do without dropping some omg spoilers for the earlier books, I am not going to summarize the plot for this book. If you're curious, check out my previous post on the first book in the Killer Unicorns series, Rampant.

Once again, I enjoyed the book about vicious, man-eating unicorns, although perhaps slightly less than I liked the first one. This is not because this one is any less good, but because it is a lot less happy than the prior book. The first book had its share of injuries, violence and tough issues, but this one has very little happy occurrences to balance the badness. Nonetheless, all the pain felt necessary and true.

The issues that Astrid struggled with are back, but she cannot continue to waver. She deals with her relationship with Giovanni, which becomes even more questionable with the long distance element and the reappearance of Brandt. She also becomes increasingly unsure about whether unicorn hunting is a good thing and whether killing unicorns is truly justified by the human lives that will be saved. Family issues must be dealt with as well, from her absent father to her megalomaniac mother.

Ascendant is a good sequel and hopefully not the end of the series. I think there is room for more, although the ending of this book could conceivably end the series. Hopefully not for Astrid's sake. Ascendant came out yesterday so check it out (after reading Rampant, of course)!

"Paraphernalia
Never hides your broken bones
And I don't know why
You want to try"