** spoiler alert ** 
 I enjoyed the first book enough that I immediately checked this one out to find out what happened next. I knew it was a trilogy and dreaded the inevitable middle book slump, but I don't think this one was a let-down from the first, necessarily. It actually just revealed to me that I hadn't really processed the weaknesses of The Rules because it ended on a cliffhanger and I wanted to know what happened next. 
 In this one, with Ariane and Zane on the run, I enjoyed the Chicagoland setting, and I always enjoy spies-breaking-into-houses-to-lie-low-from-the-enemy shenanigans, but it seemed pretty tame, somehow. I think knowing that Ariane has the power to telekinetically kill any enemies and just doesn't do it because she's too tender-hearted kindof lowered the stakes for me. And I can handle one angsty I'm-going-to-sacrifice-myself-for-you-but-won't-tell-you-before-I'm-gone moment in a book, but this series seemed to have too many. 
 Ford and her "brothers" attending high school was another head-scratcher for me. If they're not allowed to associate with other students and are escorted in and out with bodyguards, how exactly are they getting "normal human socialization"? They could seriously learn as much or more about how humans interact by watching a prescribed course of reality tv, and with much less risk of their creator's investment. 
 I actually put down this book midway through and went off and read another similar supertalented-outsider-meets-normal-guy-and-has-adventures-escaping-bad-guys series before coming back to this. After the End/Until the Beginning had its own issues, but in that duo, I found myself more invested in the characters and the outcome. 
 Again, I went on and read book 3 because this one ended on a cliffhanger, but I finished it this morning, and already the details are fading. Not memorable.