Unfortunately, Wells showed all his cards in the first installment, saving none for the second. While Variant was an edge of your seat thrill ride with a killer twist, Feedback is slow and plodding, with no new revelations or surprises. Nothing happens, really. There are a lot of conversations, and I suppose there’s some action, but it feels strained and a bit pointless. Characters backtrack, little progress is made, and I have a hard time recollecting where things stand at the end of the book. It makes for a pretty unmemorable read. It’s unfortunate, too, since I so enjoyed Variant. While the sequel is a must-read for rabid fans of the first book, I’d say that overall this is a series that can be safely skipped.

Coben does a better job following up his series opener than Wells does, but I still found it a bit of a disappointment. He gives us a new self-contained mystery while advancing the overall series arc, which is nice and something that mysteries do very well. I didn’t have as much patience this time around for the somewhat cliched characters, though. Some of their high school speech rang a little false to me, like someone doing an exaggerated imitation of teenagers. But what really made this a less than satisfying read were the coincidences, which are legion and make the story hard to take seriously. So much of the story also hinges on characters not revealing information that really can be safely revealed, a  lazy plot device.

Still, the mystery is interesting, in particular the long arc, and we get more insight into Ema’s character, which I appreciated. Rather than letting that particular plot thread hang for many, many books, he gives us fulfillment in book two. It’s refreshing because it’s so unusual. I’ll most likely be picking up the next books in this series, though I hope Coben strengthens the issues I focused on here.

Both books borrowed from my local library.