In case I haven’t said this enough: I loved, loved, loved book one „The Haunting of Sunshine Girl“. I’ve been looking for some good old-fashioned „goosebumps“ horror novels in the YA genre and with Sunshine, I’ve finally found it. Ghosts, demons, monster. The good, the bad,… it’s got it all. But you already know that, if you’ve read book one. And book two is no different. We jump right back in with a scene that still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I recommend reading these books in bright daylight. Definitely not when it’s dark, during thunderstorms, or right before going to bed. If things go bump in the night, you’re on your own.

„Don’t you want to move on, Anna?“ I sense her answer immediately. I smile, relieved. Until she adds, But not until the time is right.

About book two, I have to say that it’s not as creepy as the first book was. It’s got its moments, it’s fair share of ghosts and even a demon or two. But all in all, it’s a second book in a series and has a lot of explaining to do. If you felt like book one left a lot of questions unanswered, book two is where you’ll find all the answers. What are luiseach? What do they do? How does it work? Who exactly is Aiden? And what happened to Sunshine when she was a newborn baby? In „The Awakening of Sunshine Girl“ you’ll find everything you might need to know.

Because it has to answer all of these questions (and more), it felt a bit slow sometimes. The first book, with all the action, the ghosts, the big mystery and Sunshine herself being super scared, just set the bar a little too high. Right now, Sunshine has accepted her fate, she’s a lot more relaxed about all the ghosts and so are we as readers. It’s not boring, or too slow, or too anything… just don’t expect it to be as thrilling and creepy as book one. Sunshine and her mentor have a lot of explaining to do in this book. Which is not as boring as I make it sound. Promise.

„Maybe he’ll forget he ever knew a girl named Sunshine.“

The only major issue I had with this book was the love triangle that was introduced in form of a new boy crush for Sunshine. Maybe (or definitely) it’s because I am and will always be Team Nolan (is that even a thing? anyone else? there should be T-Shirts….) but love triangles are getting old. Especially super predictable or super unnecessary ones, like in this book. Of course, I don’t know where book three will be going. But so far, there was no reason for this Lucio thing to happen, other than wanting a love triangle in a YA book. And that just annoys me with a lot of YA books lately… (but that’s a story for another day).

“Katherine,“ Aiden begins. „Kat,“ he corrects himself. „There’s a reason you named your daughter Sunshine.“

Don’t get me wrong: the love triangle doesn’t ruin the book or anything. It’s just something that is annoying me in books lately, so I had to mention that, sorry. Other than that, I really liked „The Awakening of Sunshine Girl“. I wanted to love it, but I sadly couldn’t, not 100%. Which usually happens with 2nd books in series. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that before. Book Two was never anyones favorite of anything, right? (Second Book Syndrom)

I will definitely continue with the series. No question whatsoever. The ending was AMAZING and I can’t wait to read how they all get out of that one. I still (and probably always will) recommend this series! If you’ve read book one, you will want to read this ASAP. I just hate that we have to wait another YEAR for book three „The Sacrifice of Sunshine Girl“. (sad panda :( )

Are you #TeamNolan? Or #TeamLucio? Do you believe in the big bad Second Book Syndrom? Or can you think of a book series where the second book was your favourite? Tell me. I’d love to know.

p.s.: One more *random* thing I wanted to say, but couldn’t fit into the BookTalk: Similar to the Veronica Mars books, where there is never enough Logan, there was not enough Nolan in this book…