Miss Mayhem by Rachel Hawkins

Summary (from Goodreads):

Life is almost back to normal for Harper Price. The Ephors have been silent after their deadly attack at Cotillion months ago, and her best friend, Bee, has returned after a mysterious disappearance. Now Harper can focus on the important things in life: school, canoodling with David (her nemesis-turned-ward-slash-boyfie), and even competing in the Miss Pine Grove pageant.

Unfortunately, supernatural chores are never done. The Ephors have decided they’d rather train David than kill him. The catch: Harper has to come along for the ride, but she can’t stay David’s Paladin unless she undergoes an ancient trial that will either kill her . . . or make her more powerful than ever.

Review:

I love Rachel Hawkins. I really do. Her books are the kind of fun, fluffy YA perfect to take to the beach with you. I don’t love this series like I loved her first one, but I do still really enjoy these books too. This one kind of read like a mixture of Buffy and Hart of Dixie.  It’s cute. It’s full of supernatural action. It’s heavy on the teen romance. And it has all these southern town quirks that makes the humor stand out.

I have started to hate not knowing things in this series. There’s just so much I don’t know about the Ephors, about paladins in general, about her Harper’s best friend, about everything and I was looking for a little more answers in book two, than what I got. On the other hand, I got scary (psychological) trials, ex boyfriend drama, school fairs, and pageants. This one seemed to be a little more about the high school drama than the supernatural drama. And normally, I’d love this. I just felt like I needed a little more of the supernatural stuff to clarify some things that have become a bit frustrating not knowing.

I have grown to love Harper though. She is so loyal. She’d do anything for her friends, even the ones who don’t deserve it. She’s a strong, multi-tasking, powerhouse of a main character and I love watching her figure out her life as the paladin and balancing it with her normal over-achieving life.

All the break-ups and hook-ups seemed pretty predictable to me. I wasn’t a fan of them all. But, I do see the believability of all these teens having all this drama. It’s as one of Harper’s aunts puts it:  too many important things are happening and being decided upon by children. This is what children would do.

I love Harper’s relationships with her aunts. I also found her relationship with David to be super interesting. Their transition from rivals to something more has been a lot of fun to read about. Though I kind of wish an important moment in their relationship received more than a few seconds of consideration later…I liked watching Harper become friends with her ex (and now mage). I liked seeing how her powers came in handy, but so did her personality. She couldn’t always fix things with a mind eraser by her mage of an ex-boyfriend. She actually had to fix some problems the old fashioned way.

I’m not sure I completely understood the ending. I’ll have to put together a lot of pieces when the next one comes out. I definitely still need to read the next book (like yesterday). Hopefully, more will be clear then. Overall, the characters and charm of this book outweigh its flaws. I give it an 8/10.