This was a worthy follow-up than couldn't quite reach the magic of the first one. It hit familiar notes in a new way, but there's nothing quite like the first time. Overall, it fulfilled the mission of a prequel well, and I finished feeling that I understood the characters and their history much better.

The twist wasn't as big and didn't cause me to reevaluate the book as much, but I appreciated the emotion in the descriptions.

It managed to achieve that "compulsive" status where I wanted to keep reading as much as possible to find out what comes next.

Carrie is more guilty than Cady was, but she's more distant from the deaths and generally does a better job of justifying them to herself. The writer did a great job writing from a different, more mature and cynical voice than Cady's while still retaining some of the hallmarks of the first book (the fairytales, the short poem-like chapters, and the way she described other characters).