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.

ttyl

The "gimmick" of ttyl is that it is written entirely in instant messaging conversations. This method works ridiculously well for conversation-driven works. Like works of drama, each character is clearly identified by name next to their dialog. However, it one-ups drama by also giving each character their own characteristic font, thus allowing you to know who is talking without even bothering glancing at the name. Another advantage is that IM is the method of communication, rather than a representation of it. Thus, all 'non-verbal' communication is succinctly embedded in the conversation (using emoticons, capitalization and brief '*' asides)
To be honest, this is more 'IM'-lite. The spelling and grammar are much more polished than typical IM conversations. The story flows well without too many jumps, and emoticon use is also lower than typical IM conversations. That helps it work reall well. Rather being a slave to authenticity, the work adopts IM to do the best job of telling the story. The author, does however, limit the story to IM conversations among the three characters (usually two and a time.) Other activities, in person chats and phone conversations are only told as through the instant messaging.

As for the story, well, it is ok. Three girls start their sophomore year in high school. Each of them have different bits of boy trouble. Sometimes they get a little vulgar, but its generally pretty good. Their characters seem fairly reasonable. The external characters, however, seem to suddenly transform from one person to another. Perhaps it could be excused as being filtered through the blinders of the three girls. However, I would still have liked to see the guys developed in a little more "normal" pattern, rather than being drastically changing chameleons.