As much as I loved A Study in Charlotte, I'm not entirely sure what to rate The Last of August. There were definitely many things I loved about it, including the writing style and the development of the characters and the characters' relationships; but there were also things I think could, and should, have been worked out more. 
 The fact that the book is written (mostly) from Jamie's perspective and thus the reader only knows what he knows can be a little annoying, because Jamie is often left in the dark. Sometimes it's not entirely clear what's going on or who's doing what and I felt that such things didn't always get explained afterwards. Sometimes it also felt a little too convenient to have characters present or not, or able or unable to do certain things. Some characters are introduced and then never really worked out; others, mainly Milo, are shown to be capable of pretty much anything and knowing everything that's going on, yet fail to prevent or even understand certain situations, or make mistakes they shouldn't have made based on the things we know about them. 
 Two chapters were written from Charlotte's point of view, which was brilliant. I can only applaud the author for giving Jamie and Charlotte such different narrative voices that you can randomly open a page, read a single sentence, and know which one of them is narrating that chapter. They're unique and distinctive in so many ways, which makes them so much fun to read about, especially when they're interacting. 
 I've read a lot of reviews of people saying they didn't like the way Jamie and Charlotte's relationship developed in this second book. Personally, I really did. Whatever there is between them is complicated, just like Charlotte herself, but also just like it can be in real life sometimes. I won't go into detail, because it's more fun for readers to find out what happens themselves, but I was glad they didn't go through the whole standard teenage romantic relationship struggles with the happy ending as most teenagers do in most YA books. This felt much more realistic. 
 What does bother me a bit is the ending. It felt like the story was almost over and then, suddenly, so much happened in such a short space of time that it became somewhat too overwhelming and confusing - which is a shame, because the twist in itself is quite clever and very interesting. I felt, though, that it wasn't worked out enough. The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, which I hate, but only because it means I have to wait another way too long time to find out what happens next. 
 Summarised: I'll admit that I loved A Study in Charlotte more, but I was still captured by The Last of August and I can't wait to read the third book, because I think it's going to be brilliant. I hope more things will click into place when I re-read both books again later, which I'm planning on doing before the third book comes out. I still think this is a fantastic and very innovative trilogy; I really hope the ending will be a good and satisfactory one.