I felt like this book was a lot weaker than the first book (The House in the Cerulean Sea). Whilst we follow the same cast of lovable characters, it felt overall like there was less development of characters in this book. In the first book, we get to know all the people on the island and how they slowly open up to Linus. A journey which feels really rewarding. This sense of growth and of discovery is missing from the second book. Arthur gets a little bit more development, but overall I felt like most of the other characters didn't experience any growth. In this book, the characters start taking on the government, and it's policy on magical children. It moves away from the character focused narrative of the first book and becomes more story focused. I generally tend to prefer character driven stories, so that might be the reason this second book fell flat for me.