Rain: 09/20/15

Rain by Amanda Sun is the sequel to Ink. Katie Greene has decided to stay until she can sort things out with her kami friends.

Thinking she can take a breather and just enjoy being with her friends at a summer festival, things quickly get out of hand. Some of the fireworks aren't fireworks at all — they're made of ink. Her beautiful borrowed kimono is now covered in ink stains.

Rain falls into the second book in a trilogy trap. In the first book, the uninitiated main character learns the world doesn't work as first thought. Then they learn that they have special powers or abilities or a blood right to it. By the second book, the character knows the big dark secrets, is initiated into the cult or whatever, and is now trying to get back to a "normal" life.

To get everything moving towards an epic battle in the concluding volume, the second book often ends up having lots of random bad stuff, ever escalating right at the protagonists, even at the sacrifice of pacing within the book if it were to be read as a stand alone.

Katie ends up tossed from one hair raising adventure to another, all the while trying to help her friends and sort out her enemies. Reading Rain was more of a chore than Ink. Katie in this book has a lot in common with Sam from season two of Supernatural and for many of the same reasons.

I'm hoping Katie will be able to settle into her powers for the third book.

Three stars

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