This book really suffered from being a second book. All the fun world-building has already happened, and now the characters more or less just dash about madly getting into place and having revelations so that the climactic showdown of the third book can happen.

I really enjoyed that Sean heard his dead sister's voice, but I kept thinking "Wow, more characters should hear voices, this is a great device!" which is, I am aware, more than a little odd of me.

Also a strange technical choice: half-way through, the reader finally gets the final word on whether Sean and George were actually incestuously involved or just weirdly co-dependent. (It's the former.) And I'm really not sure why it took so long for the author to let me know. It's not like it's a big reveal, it just slips out, and provides a couple more paragraphs of angst for Sean.

Also, the book doesn't do much end on a cliff-hanger as end ten feet or from the cliff, road-runner style. The editors must agree with me, because the, chapter of the sequel provides at the end at least a couple fingers in the cliffside.