Review: Girl of Stone

Girl of Stone by Norma Hinkens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Girl of Stone is the second novel in the Expulsion Project series, and it was a great second book. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the first book, but it was still a great read.

The first novel introduced us to a wonderful cast and many brilliant planets, and this second book continues in the same way. The cast grows, introducing us to a number of characters that will leave us intrigued as to how their individual stories will play out. Certain characters from the first book are missing, and at first I felt their loss deep in my bones, but as the story progressed the empty space in my heart was filled by the new characters we were introduced to. The same is true for the world building. We came to really know the planets introduced to us in the first book, and with this second book we are introduced to a very different set of planets. They may be different, but they’re just as delightful.

Although the cast and setting has changed somewhat, it is vital that you have read the first one before jumping into this story, as this story works to answer many of our questions from the first book. It is very much a connected series, where the overall story progresses with each book.

In the first book we were introduced to many elements, and the same is true for the second book. As with the first book in the series, this one mainly focuses upon one main element. This element is what many of us have been interested in since the first page of chapter one – we want to know more about the planet our leading characters are from, we want to know what happened to their parents. Honestly, I’d expected to be holding out until the last book to receive the answer to these questions, so I was pleasantly surprised when things played out in the way they did in this book. I honestly had expected the events of this book to be very different, for the things that played out to happen in the final book. Not that this is a bad thing – it was just a surprise to me. I’m now expecting something very different from the final book, yet I’m sure it will be a wonderful conclusion to the series, as many big things are promised.

I’ll admit to feeling as though some of the events in this book happened a bit quickly. We had all the vital aspects that we were introduced to in the first book – action, suspense, romance, questionable characters, and a number of other goodies – yet at the same time it didn’t hit me quite as hard as the first book did. Considering how the events in this book were bigger than the events in the first book in many ways, I feel as though the way things played out failed to pack the same kind of punch. Some things just seemed a bit too easy for my liking. There was such build up to what was to come, and then certain elements of the story seemed to be over far too quickly. I enjoyed the way things came together, yet I had wanted a little bit more from things.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this second book. I was given many answers and yet I still have many expectations for the final book. I’m expecting quite a bang for the last book in this series, and I cannot wait to see how things play out.

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