Reaper's Legacy (Toxic City, #2)

by Tim Lebbon

[Angie]

Middle Book Syndrome strikes again! I hate when that happens, but unfortunately that's the case for Reaper's Legacy. It picks up immediately after the end of London Eye, but it never really goes anywhere until the very end. What I assumed was going to be the plot and focal point didn't happen at all. In fact, the complete opposite happened, so I was always quite confused as to where the story was going. It also didn't help that Jack, Jenna, and Sparky spend the first two thirds of the book going in a giant circle before choosing a direction. Meanwhile, Lucy-Anne (whom I did not like in the first book) has a much larger role this time around, and I'm not sure how she's suppose to fit into everything, since she's still separate from the rest of the group. It's like there's two completely different stories taking place.

The format of Reaper's Legacy is different than the first book, and it's one that I enjoyed less. We don't get any of those ominous news excerpts and I really missed that. They added something special and slightly eerie. Also, the chapters alternate between Jack and Lucy-Anne instead of just a few paragraphs from Lucy every now and then. I wasn't a fan of this for the first few chapters, but soon enough I started to like her chapters better even though I still don't like her. Lucy-Anne is heading north to find her brother, and London is even more different and dangerous in that direction. The mutations that people are undergoing are nothing like the superpowers being developed everywhere else. It's like a whole other world up there, and it was far more interesting to see that than Jack and Company's boring adventures.

I figured that Reaper's Legacy would focus on Jack either trying to take down his father or save him. The end of London Eye suggests this and so does the title, but neither happen. Jack spends the beginning of the book running from his dad and his minions, then somehow he decides to go back and find his dad again, so they have to backtrack. It made the trouble they got into useless, since they were back to where they started. Now there's some kind of weird alliance, and I absolutely cannot tell who is a bad guy, who's a good guy, and who is on whose team. Several new characters are introduced, and I couldn't keep any of them straight. There's not a lot of character development to begin with, so all of the new side characters felt like interchangeable names on a page.

Reaper's Legacy does have some weird and interesting stuff sprinkled throughout, but for the most part it was disappointing. The first two thirds seemed like a waste, since nothing happened. As for the rest, it was confusing. But a new plot element was introduced, which could have been more exciting if it had started earlier. It added a sense of urgency that the rest of the book was missing, so I do think that Contagion has the potential to redeem this series.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.