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This is the second in a series where they don't have their own titles. Read in order.

Spoilers for the previous story. You know what you are getting, not least because it's a repeat. Amber gets to go back to school again and do things she already has done. And the author actually handled that relatively well with enough changing to make it all interesting, including the crush dynamics around Amber and her friends.

I had a bit of an issue with Amber not thinking about her powers at all on her own. There were a couple of times her power would have been extremely useful and she just didn't even think about it. Like research for example. You found a deadend, how about maybe rewinding a bit and exploring a different branch? Only that would have forced the author to flesh that part out more, maybe? I dunno. That wasn't the only time I felt like Amber wasn't bothering with applying her core powerset to move the plot forward and it felt a little unthoughtout and potentially authorially manipulated.

And then we learn about a tragedy and Amber's complete lack of digging out the details, let alone consider ways she could help with a bit of timey wimey shenanigans, frustrated me. I mean, what if she ends up with another big do-over?

Which brings us to the cliffhanger* I knew was coming. It's there in the title. Apparently, each book is aimed at being a groundhog day like rerun of the whole first week of school? I am so not down for that. The thought of losing all those relationships and starting from scratch again? It made me want to cry. I can't imagine how Amber wouldn't find herself crushed.

Anyway, this was wobbling from four stars with my frustrations, but managed to be something I'd have rounded up to four. So three stars with the cliffhanger and I am completely uninterested in picking up the next (should it surface) and setting myself up for another go round.

A note about Chaste: Amber is a little more aware of the web of crushes around her this time. But she, herself, is uninterested in romance so there's nothing more than teases and blushes. So this is pretty chaste. And yeah, magical girl crush tropes are apparently a thing.

* Cliffhangers and why they are evil: Cliffhangers are the ultimate disrespect to readers. They're an overt emotional manipulation to invest you in the next story by holding a metaphorical pistol to your head saying "you don't get a satisfying conclusion unless you read the next book, sucka!". Or, less hyperbolically, "I don't trust you to be interested in the next story unless I employ this emotional manipulation to ensure that you are." If you don't believe me that they are an active offense to readers, try this mental exercise: imagine for a moment that an author put a big star on the front of their story proclaiming "Contains Cliffhanger!" Would that make readers more or less likely to want to pick up that story? Right. That's all you really need to know about cliffhangers. Which is why cliffhangers are an automatic loss of at least one star.