SUNDERWORLD, VOL. 2

Leopold Berry and his friends take on powerful adversaries as they race to understand the magical mysteries surrounding his family and the world of Sunder.

It’s been just weeks since Leopold, Emmet, and Isabel battled in Book 1. Barely recovered, Leopold finds himself at a party facing a scary and aggressive creature called a Noxum. Amid the fray, a magical ring binds itself to Leopold’s chest, giving him the power to redirect a falling cascade of glass shards and prevent them from injuring his stepbrother, Hal. The friends rush off to Isabel’s uncle Norm’s place, desperate for help with the dying Noxum and the ring fused to Leopold’s body. Their search for answers leads to the library of the Lyceum, the school for sparks (magical people), where the trio come to startling realizations about Leopold’s stern and unyielding father. The rest of the story is an action-packed series of battles with a surprising enemy. This is a worthy follow-up to the series opener: Riggs deftly handles bloody fight scenes and tender moments of grappling with inner turmoil and strained relationships. Sunder itself, “LA’s magical underworld,” is gritty and full of compelling oddities. Leopold is an unpolished hero, which is exactly what makes him an appealing and likable leading character. Leopold presents white, Isabel is cued Latine, and the earlier entry established Emmet as Black.

Imaginative and compelling; a fantastically wild ride.