Flew through this just as fast as the first in the series. I was a little wary of disappointment in case the sequel didn't hold up to the first, but I think it honestly did a pretty spectacular job. I'd say key differences between the two was this one had a lot more explicit violence/gore, and fell a little shorter on the suspense. It was a lot clearer from the start exactly what the main conflict would be, whereas in the first I really enjoyed the drawn out mystery of it. Also, this one was told from multiple perspectives (Gwen, Connor, Lanny, and Sam) and this was both fun and necessary, but also led to a massive amount of frustration as the kids thought and acted like, well, kids. A lot of this read was much like watching a scary movie and watching someone make blatantly wrong decisions, which was incredibly irritating, but since it was done by children who had very justifiable immature perspectives, if anything it did just make it more realistic. But still... Will knock a star just because the amount of annoyance and visceral disgust I experienced during this read was (even if understandable in context) more than I find pleasant, and I think came at the cost of some of the slow burn suspense I loved in the previous book.