I have this strange goal that is completely unnecessary and that adds nothing to my life - to read all of the YA series of Smallville, then the slightly older YA series of Smallville. Why? Who knows why I do these things. I do know that after reading the first book in the series, [b:Arrival|633792|Arrival (Smallville Series for Young Adults, #1)|Michael Teitelbaum|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1391902181s/633792.jpg|620085], that I became way less excited about this goal. Not only was the book amateurishly written, but it was such a copy of the first episode that it was somewhat dull.

Well, this surprised me - this second book was much better. Written by a different author, gone are the tedious exclamation marks, and even the dialogue isn't as corny. There's some humor slipped in the pages, nods and tributes to who Clark will eventually become, and an authenticity with the characters of the show. Although some of the abrupt shifts of point of view were off-putting, it delved deeper into Clark's psyche and made sense.

It took the basic story of Dawn and the weird play thing and made a variation episode. Since it wasn't a recap of an episode play by play and the author took liberty with the storyline, it was less predictable. Clark was fleshed out well enough, Lana and Chloe a bit, Pete just adorable, and the author really did a bang up job with Lex Luthor. The Lex scenes were likely the strongest - there's a few of them, with the dialogue authentic sounding, the teasing and the digging for secrets.

Overall a well done book for this sort - it's not award winning but it may end up being one of the best in the series by the time I'm done. I'm happy to see this author wrote a few more.
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