Where the Library Hides - Isabel Ibanez

** spoiler alert ** I went into this book so excited— but in the end, there were things I personally couldn't get past. As far as the plot, I loved it other than the fact that I felt like there were too many "surprises" - I can definitely appreciate a good twist, but I feel that book 1 accomplished that enough to not need to have several in book 2.

Character-wise, for me, Whit was SO frustrating. He swings between being overly emotional and completely closed off, and it's honestly hard to pin him down, and not in the mysterious way you'd want for a book boyfriend. & truthfully (this is just personal preference) his level of betrayal could NEVER be forgiven. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think much, much less of Inez when she started trusting him again.

Think about this logically- You've got a FMC that has been betrayed by literally everyone in the book thus far besides her uncle, was completely disregarded by the two people she wanted to be loved by more than anything, was treated like a spare by the family she was left with, with the exception of the cousin who died due to completely avoidable circumstances that could arguably have been the FMCs fault, was used by almost every newly introduced character for whatever scheme they were involved in, and Whit was either fully aware of it or personally watched it all happen and still betrayed her in the way he did without second thought. & to make matters worse, WHILE watching it happen, he manages to manipulate her into thinking the only person that has not betrayed her (Ricardo) actually has betrayed her, just to get what he needs in the moment. Unforgivable, imo.

She spends most of the book making reckless, emotion-based decisions, WHICH IS UNDERSTANDABLE considering the level of trauma she endured, but it did become exhausting after a while. Especially since her judge of character was almost never correct. I came to the conclusion that if Inez trusted them, I did not.

Overall, I'd say that if you loved book 1, you should still read this book. There's no denying that Isabel's writing is absolutely beautiful and very easy to follow. I devoured both titles, despite my own moral drawbacks with it. I just took personal issue with the FMC/MMC conflict.