l8r, g8r

This book shows all that is bad with sequels.
While the first book had "readable" IM conversations, this one tries to be more "authentic", with a greater use of emoticons and abbreviations. There are also text messages that are integrated in the conversation (though they appear identical, aside from the "phone" icon.) However, there is still an attempt to weave the conversations in to a book narrative. Alas, this just makes things more tedious. It reads like a novel that was poorly "translated" in to IM.

Unfortunately, for this book, the poorly implemented style is the best thing going for it. The story itself is horrid. It primarily tells of three high school seniors and their senior-year relationships. In the first book, they were somewhat developed characters. Here, they are flat, with primary interests in debauchery and vengeance-seaking (what morals, eh?) Sure there are college applications, but they are primarily a tool to illicit fights. The book also tries to be "current" by dropping in pop-culture references, which, alas, already seem really dated. This is a book that is best skipped.