Teen Review: The Man Painter

The Man Painter (Painter Series #2) by Melissa Turner Lee
Release Date ~ September 20, 2012
Self-published
E-copy received from author for review

Goodreads Synopsis
Secrets can kill a relationship. But the secrets Holly and Theo keep from each other in the start of their relationship could mean the death of either of them. Fritz holds all the cards, and raises the stakes in this deadly, more adult conclusion of The Painter Series.

When I finished The Earth Painter, I was dying for the sequel to come out.  I built up this book to be amazing in my mind.  I was really excited when I got a message on Goodreads asking if I wanted an ARC.  Obviously, I said yes.  When I started reading the PDF, I found that it did not reach my incredibly high standards and wasn't up to par with the first book in the series.

1. A Great Story Involving the Painters:
   
   One of the best parts of the previous book is of course the other painters, such as Biology and Physics.  The storyline that surrounded them was really exciting to read about, and I also thought that a lot of work was put into it.  Their story contributes so much to the ending, which I thought was a fairly surprising ending.  I liked how we get to see a bit more about their friendship with Theo.

 

I think that the reason I did not enjoy this book as much as the previous one is because like it says in the synopsis, it's more adult.  I think that the more adult way of telling the story I found really hard to connect with, and I found some of the characters to be completely annoying. 

 

 I really liked the romance in the previous novel, and I found it really sweet.  In the sequel, I found it moved far too fast for any lasting relationship to.  Holly acted incredibly immature sometimes, which I thought was a big step backward for her character from the book before.  Some things just didn't make sense to me.

 

I think that if you're an older, adult reader, you might connect with this book more.  I'm a younger teen, so if you're older and you liked the previous book, you might very well like this one.  There are some good parts in this book, but it just didn't do it for me.