Scala

Scala
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: ARC Courtesy of NetGalley

Myla Lewis is back and this time she's transformed in to the Great Scala, which means she's the only one who can move souls about from Purgatory to Heaven or Hell. Except Lucifer's Orb, an artifact, is messing with her ability, and forcing her to send souls bound for Heaven, to Hell instead. Sending the souls bound to Heaven, innocent souls, to Hell is not Mylas style. She's gone on strike until the Orb is dealt with. Except, there's so many souls, with nowhere to go, the Soul Storage buildings in Purgatory are becoming time bombs. Eventually the containment fields will burst, releasing very, let's just say 'upset' ghosts. Myla needs to find the Orb and destroy it so she can send the souls on their way but she's running out of time.

Cue Mylas old enemy Lady Adair popping back up causing a ruckus. A ruckus that involves taking away everything from Myla, everything she holds dear, including super cute Prince Lincoln, her Angelbound love. Not cool.

I loved Angelbound, it was so incredibly unique from everything else, and as everyone knows I love books that have something unique. It's not that I'm getting bored with all the books that are pretty similar to others in the genre, it's that they're usually so predictable and you feel quite jaded guessing every twist and turn.
I was so stoked that Scala continued on all the uniqueness of the first book and I loved it just as much.

Myla is one of my favourite leading ladies, I want to be her, seriously she's so badass. Myla has a mouth. She can snark to rival me, which is quite a feat. You can take lessons from Myla about how to get yourself out of situations your mouth gets you in with minimum damage. I love that. Myla is a character I can still relate to in the second book, and still root for her and support her the whole way through the book. It's so easy to read her narrative, she's got such a spark that draws you to her. Now the first book is so incredibly unique because there is no insta love between Myla and Lincoln, and I loved seeing them together again, I felt very satisfied with the way their relationship was going and the path it was taking.

Adair is that character that, in the first book, was a mild irritant. She irritated you, you wanted her to piss off, she never would, but she proved how ridiculous and silly she is and Myla won out. When she comes back in this book, well, the author has written her so well that I felt an outright hatred for her, not the "oh you love to hate her" hate, but the "I really would love to punch you in the face with a brick" hate. Be prepared.

The plot, for me, was great, mostly. The plot was intriguing, with the Orb and the threat and the whole trying to work out the bigger picture and such. I just felt annoyed more than once because Adair was the one being the baddie, and she came across as annoyingly spiteful, as well as inspiring as I said before, lots of hatred. I'm not down with the whole "trying to steal my man back and ruin your life even though you're the better candidate for the job", I don't enjoy reading those types of plots, which was disappointing for me.

Having said that, the flow was fantastic again, as was the prose, not to mention how the different parts of the plot eventually fit together and where written.

This book is a lot shorter than the first book, which is really a shame because I felt like some things where rushed a bit and not as fleshed out as they could be, we didn't get to spend much time in the world. I think because of the lack of length to the book, some really great opportunities where missed.

As soon as you had settled back in to the world and got engrossed in the book, it ended. Scala unfortunately did get taken down with a minor case of second book syndrome, which is such a shame because I was so excited for this.

While Scala falls to second book syndrome, which is disappointing, along with it's shortness, to fans who where super excited for this book, it was still an enjoyable read with a familiar world, and characters you love and come to love more. The plot, while personally to me being over shadowed by Adair and everything, was still written very well, although opportunities had been missed. There where plenty of twists and turns for you to guess at, but eventually be proved wrong. Don't get me wrong, while there where a couple of minor bad things, the book still sucked me in from the beginning and still made me laugh, which are two important things for a book!

I'm excited for the next book, and hoping it'll be longer, and succeed the second book!