Web of Lies (The Hundred Halls #2) By: Thomas K. Carpenter

Plot:

Whoever controls the Hundred Halls, controls the world.

Aurelia “Aurie” Silverthorne has high hopes for her second year in the Hundred Halls, the world’s only magical university, but her expectations are destroyed when she accidentally unleashes a plague of faez-eating thralls and spends week after week getting killed in the Grand Contest.

But none of this matters when Aurie learns that the Cabal searches for a powerful magic that will help them get control of the Hundred Halls. If Aurie can’t stop them, then passing her classes will be the least of her worries.

Review:

Within the first 30% of the book a couple of the tropes that I’d been happy weren’t in the first book reared their heads. We got some mild angst and a super-hot guy interested in one of our girls. We also had some stupid decisions and some moments of why did it take you so long to do what needed to be done. I could also see the author introducing a love triangle in the future, though a second guy hasn’t been introduced yet.

Overall I was super disappointed in the second book of the Hundred Halls series. Yes, there was more world building, but the main characters weren’t developed further and they were back to getting over the death of their parents. It wasn’t the focus but it was mentioned a lot, especially by Pi who I’m not sure Carpenter knows what to do with at all.

Aurie is supposed to be the selfless smart one, but she makes several selfish stupid decisions. Pi is supposed to be smart and impetuous, and willing to take advantage of a situation to help herself, she mostly lived up to that but she also became a lone wolf and her storyline was pretty much over halfway through. There were definite pacing issues.

Honestly, I’m probably not going to read the next book and I think I’m just going to avoid the genre completely. We’ll see.

2/5