The Golden Spiral

This is the second book by Lisa Mangum in her Hourglass Door series.  It continues the love story between Dante and Abby, the complication that arose at the conclusion of the last book, and gives the reader the opportunity to see that Abby isn't like other girls in other books who adopt the damsel in distress persona and are unable to escape.

Abby is seeing her life torn apart by what Zo is able to do with his new-found power.  What has been her norm through high school graduation is being manipulated, people who were there suddenly aren't, and friendships that had been tested before are again and again in this book.  Abby takes matters into her own hands, gets people involved who don't seem to know why they are and learns that she has many more abilities than she ever thought possible.

Here's my disclaimer - this is total brain candy, but smartly done.  The symbol of the river that is reintroduced in this book, the complexities that it draws, the allusions to other great pieces of literature all make me like this more than I should.  I like that it has those smart elements, but that it isn't necessary to identify all of them to have a really great reading experience.  I feel like her teenaged characters really are the same as the teens I teach, that she walks the line of being too teenish very well, keeps their language appropriate but not too mature, and there are twists that kept me engaged.  I do look forward to the next book (probably a year away...)