Second Summoning - Review

Intro

Though I haven't had a chance in the last couple of days to sit down and play some Pokemon, I did have a little niggle in regards to a book review I haven't done. According to my update on Goodreads, I finished The Second Summoning at the beginning of this month. It's long overdue for a review, so that's what I've got for you today.

SPOILER WARNING

If you have not read Summon the Keeper or The Second Summoning by Tanya Huff, please leave the blog and return later. I'm lousy at keeping my reviews spoiler free.

The Second Summoning by Tanya Huff - Review

The Second Summoning is, in my estimation, mostly a world building book. It's the second book in the Keeper's Chronicles trilogy and, as such, is very much the middle book. We continue to follow the journey, and mishaps, of Claire Hansen, Austin, and Dean McIssac. We are reintroduced to Claire's family, most notably her little sister, Diana. We are then introduced to the world around Diana, which has been made both better and worse through her high school career.

The main drive of The Second Summoning is an accidental creation of an angel who isn't exactly an angel, Samuel, and his demonic counterpart, Byleth. The creation of the angel is caused by a combined effort of Diana, Claire, and Dean. They then must track him down and deal with whatever problems were caused by the demonic counterpart. Of course, the angelic and demonic entities appear to be teenagers and hijinks ensue.

What I found really interesting about The Second Summoning was the way things like angels and demons were dealt with. They are, ultimately, pieces of the "light" and the "dark" with no actual personality ascribed to them. This, of course, changes when it turns out that someone messed up while Samuel was being formed and so he ends up essentially being a teenager. And, as dark and light must be balanced, Byleth ends up as a female teenager. The way the pair are dealt with by Claire and Diana is much more interesting than the moral dilemma they bring up in the book itself. Sam ends up as Diana's cat and Byleth gets sent off to live with an elderly couple she'd terrorized earlier in the book.

As always with this series, there are tons of pop culture references and Keeper/Bystander arguments. We get a much better look at what a Keeper actually does while seeing Diana in school and Claire on the road. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we got a lot more Austin quipping about various things along the way, because he's a cat and not to mention it would be disrespectful to cats.

I also feel like I do a horrible job reviewing these books. My recommendation is to go out and read them for yourself. They're a lot of fun, even on second or third read-through.

Don't forget to feed the cat.

Love ya, Jessie.