Riddles and danger

I really enjoyed the first book in the series and that got me through book 2 where there was very little action. Book 3, this one, has a lot more action, but I'm starting to get frustrated with how the author treats his female characters. The two girls, Ella and Megan, are reduced to side characters that have conversations about how cute their fellow students are and whether or not they want to get married.

While there is a bit of a reason behind the marriage question, it doesn't play very well except to highlight how unoriginal their conversation is and how little effort was given to build their characters past “girl, sister to Noah” and “girl, friend to Noah and Richie.” Very disappointing.

The ending is slightly better at giving the two girls actual dialog and actions, but I'm not sure if that makes up for the conversation in the middle of the book... At this point, I have the last three books in the series to read, but it's going to be hard to get the desire to finish them after this one.