This is the second book in the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. It was first published in 2007 by Shadow Mountain and the audiobook I listened to was narrated by E. B. Stevens. This is a fantasy children’s book filled with creatures from folklore and mythology as Kendra and Seth is back to fight against the evil Evening Star.
Fablehaven is once again put in danger as a new demon is on the loose, haunting Seth who has released him while the Evening Star infiltrate Fablehaven to find the ancient artifacts hidden in the sanctuary of magical creatures. The adults are once again in dire need of help and its up to the children to save the day, Kendra now with fairy power and Seth with stupidity and courage as his weapon.
Three new characters are introduced, the three new teachers. The potion master Tanu, the Artifacts master Coulter and the adventurer Vanessa. All three feels like stereotypes. Tanu being a Somoan, big, wise, kind but scary looking. Coulter is the bigoted British man, an elitist. Vanessa is the sexy spanish or latin American lady. We also have the black man called the sphinx, we also have Warren, Dales brother, who is constantly addressed as the albino. We have some other characters but very few are of any consequence. Most are there to teach the children something, the only one who doesn’t are the culprit. Which makes it pretty obvious who is, but still.
The two old main characters are… The same. They are not complex. Kendra is a crying, coward but wise and now overpowered since the fairy queen gave her blessing to the girl. She can now speak any other language, resist spells, cast spells, see in the dark and god knows how much more.
The writer put in a lot of traits in her characters, but keep her personality to the female stereotype. For example, in one scene they drink potions that will invoke emotions. She gets shame, and is ashamed about her pimple. Her pimple. Not that she uses her brother as a test subject for dangerous things so she won’t have to do it or that she in the first book wanted to be more courageous only to run away when it matters to the fairy queen who saved her ass and Kendra got all the glory for something she didn’t do. None of that, she felt shame for her pimple. I mean, the author has never depicted her as shallow, but I guess she is a girl so her being ashamed of her appearance was a given.
I don’t know the purpose of Seth, he is just… Weirdly out of place. His main purpose seems to be courageous, often to the point of stupidity. I liked that he seemed to get some skills, such as getting magical artifacts and understanding potions far better than his sister. Even if the last one makes no sense when Kendra was considered the smart one while Seth was considered the one being able to handle rough situations.
The plot is similar to the last one, just one new demon with the Evening Star sending agents to infiltrate the preserve to get its secrets. In one way or another, the adults are captured and Kendra and her brother have to save them. It follows old traditions that makes little sense, just as it didn’t in stories like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series or if you want to go to older series then Nancy Drew follows the same logic that makes children handle things that adults should handle. Though I think the author forgot to make a relationship between Kendra and the betrayer.
Kendra acts like they are close, but the only thing I can remember Kendra thinking was that she didn’t like the betrayer, and that is suppose to make me believe that she would cry for being betrayer. Maybe I just missed when the two of them became close friends, it is mentioned that they are penpals or something at the end. I cannot remember it being a big thing before, which I hope is just means that I missed it.
I still thought that this book handles it better since the first book didn’t really explain why the children have to be put in danger, it was just due to the incompetence of the adults. In this one it felt like there was no choice, since the adults was captured early on and the children was just left alone by circumstance. I also liked that all the problems in the book wasn’t just because of Seth stupidity. The demon was released because of Seth, but only because his sister forced him to help her by helping a stranger to get rid of a goblin she didn’t like. He was this time pulled into it by his sister, not that the book addresses this. It really doesn’t like making Kendra take responsibility for what she has done.
All in all, I liked this one better than the first one. I liked that the children are getting some skills and though I doesn’t like the traditional roles of the two characters, but there are signs that the author is trying to pull them out of the holes he has dug for them. The plot is rather linear, but it doesn’t have to be complicated and I like that the author takes his time expanding the lore.
My biggest criticism would be that the author really thinks his readers (aka the children) have the memory of goldfishes. I have no idea how many times the book just stops to explain what have happened, in either the first book or in this one. It became annoying after a while as there was quite a lot of unnecessary moments that just was about confirming that you remember what had happened. The info dumping did halter the story, and it could have been shorted by a bit. All that said though, considering all that I have mention, my final rating is a 8 out of 10.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
Read with Senefer 