Book Review: The Nightmare Garden

TITLE: The Nightmare Garden
Book 2 in the Iron Codex Trilogy
AUTHOR: Caitlin Kittredge
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: steampunk, faeries, fantasy
PREMISE: Aoife continues her journey.
MY REVIEW: I loved The Iron Thorn last year. Sadly it was one of the many overlooked books last year which I think partly had to do with it being released in a month when many other more hyped up books were released and had to do with lack of promotion. Because I seriously recall very little reviews of this book. It's sad too, because I think Iron Thorn was really good.
I loved Nightmare Garden just as much too. Granted, Aoife's self-martyring got on my nerves a lot, and I still want more developement for side characters like Cal. It also is very much a second book in that mostly it's plot leading up to the third book. It's still exciting and everything but even I have to admit I wished things had slowed down just a bit for character stuff though the morsels that the author did put in were very nice. I now feel like I get Dean as a character more.
The ending did feel like typical sequelness that is straight out of Star Wars (see Luke and Leia going after Han Solo) but it's still a very solid book overall and I can't wait to see how this all comes to head in the last book.
WHO SHOULD READ: Leviathan fans, steampunk fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five airships