Review: Decent followup to a fun superhero series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 17, 2011
If you read the firstPriscilla the Great, then you know what to expect: a fun, middle-school take on a standard superhero trope (heroine has superpowers, is in hiding from evil institution which wants to control her for their own evil schemes, and needs to juggle secret identity with regular life).  I liked it almost as much as the first in the series, but a cliffhanger ending and repeated campiness make it slightly less successful for me.Plot Premise**************This story takes place a couple months after the end of the first book.  Priscilla has a lot going on.  She's in a bit of a love triangle, her mom has lost her powers and is acting strangely, and she's adjusting to her new life in hiding.  On top of that, she's taken over running the missions that her mom used to run and is trying to stay one step ahead of Colonel Selliwood and his evil compatriots.Details**************The writing is first-person and chatty and works well when dealing with her interactions with people in her life.  Her relationships with her brothers, friends, and parents are funny and heartwarming and believable, even when she's using her invisible jet and super powers to play pranks or get even with her little brothers.Where the story stumbles a bit for me is the villains.  I expect to need to suspend disbelief in this sort of story, but I found that the villains were so one-dimensional and their aims and methods were so pointlessly evil, that it seemed a little flat compared to the more complex characters in the good side.  Similarly, the fights and scientific explanations are, of course,  over-the-top unrealistic, but, by the second book, I find myself wishing they were a little something more.  I don't think they're any different than in the first book, but after a while it gets predictable, which makes it less funny and suspenseful.  And if it's not funny or suspenseful or poignant or believable, then why are we reading it?  It could be just that I'm not the target audience though - I'm a mother in my late thirties and although I enjoy reading good kids and young adult books, I'm not actually a kid myself.  All in all, I recommend the series in general and this book in particular if you're in the mood to turn off your brain and enjoy a little escapism.