A History of Madness

–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
Opening up once more in Redwater, this time in the past, we see a younger Hangman taking a group of children along and showing them just what happens to people who break the laws of the kingdom. Clearly intended to remind the reader just how dark and oppressive this place is, and it just does that, setting the tone once more. It was interesting to see things from his perspective as well as others besides our two main characters at times in this book.

But the story is mostly told from Nate's point of view. We see how he recovers from the effects of the serum, and how he gains new abilities from it. He also fills in all of his backstory, such as his time in the Underground Club. As he learns of Kitty's fate he plans his escape from the hard labor sentence and attempts to rescue her and the other survivors...

Apart from the new journey that the characters take, one that is headed towards the Outlands finally, we see things from the mutant's perspective too. We learn much about them, and how they see humanity. Nate even stops by a library at one point filled with books from the old world, and much of the history is revealed. Many questions are answered in this one. So many great things are brought up and I find it hard to talk about them without heavy spoilers so I'll just move on from that and say it was all well done.

This second book remains consistent with the first and what I found to be the strengths and weaknesses. The writing and world-building are still phenomenal, but Nate's and Kitty's overdramatic dialogue take up a lot of time yet again. Now that I was both used to it and expecting it, it wasn't so bad for me, but man they do go on. Nate also does some very annoying things with threats and whatnot that I felt were just there to up the drama factor, but I do have a very cynical mind. To be fair, there a lot of musings about freedom that I enjoyed, and I want to clearly state I enjoy them both as characters. They are joined by quite a large cast of side characters this time, and their presence thankfully added more dialogue scenes than just the romance stuff.

With this being the second book, most of the introductory things about the oppressive nature of their society didn't need to be explained again, and so we had a lot more action scenes and a lot of things that move the narrative forward instead of just the set up like in the first book. The rabid mutants were finally shown, so of course, that made me very happy. And because it amuses me to bring it up, so many scenes were bursting full of lovely descriptions of all kinds of food again, and hey Nate was able to enjoy it this time.

We end book two on a cliffhanger, and a promise of a fresh new look at things in book three, full of many more reveals and continued world-building I'm sure.