It's the last day of school, and finally, Diana's out of school and activated to full-on Keeper duties. Her first job? At the mall, of course. Specifically, a mall that folks on the Otherside are trying to replicate enough so that one can be switched for the other, then hello, world having one hell of a bad opening in it. Grabbing Claire and her cat (of sorts) Sam, they take off for the Otherside version of mall, where they hang out with a pack of teenage elves and Arthur (yes, that Arthur). Meanwhile, Dean and Austin deal with a man who loves his mummy.
This one's a great deal of fun, and I especially enjoyed Diana developing interest in someone after all of her previous snarkage on her sister. Some folks might have issues with Diana being a bit more featured in this book (they've gone from 90/10 to 60/40 to 40/60 Claire/Diana, I think), but I liked her perspective and attitude on things, and Claire is still in it a great deal. I think it's high time Diana got more involved, too. I did find it kind of weird that two of the main characters were split off from the main action for most of the book, but I think that was to set up something for the next one...which should be interesting, eh?
(A wee bit of speculation spoilage below follows. Avert your eyes!)
Okay, so Claire "breaks the rules" in this one, right? Was there not being able to exit the ONLY consequence of breaking a Big Rule? I think not. That's probably the next plot...
Posted by Jenmoon at July 14, 2003 10:11 AM