Here we are at the second in the Mostly Ghostly series, and I'm still not all that impressed with it. What I didn't like in the first one carries over to Have you Met My Ghoulfriend?, in spades! The characters are all very flat and stereotypical...the father and brother only becoming bigger bullies, the mom more annoying, even the teachers and principal are just caricatures...there because they have to be, not really fleshed out or made believable or interesting.

In this second volume, Max is STILL having issues and Max and Tara are still appearing and disappearing without much control over it. Phears is back and badder than ever...you'd thank Max would run from any and all animals at this point! Max is under threat of being "broken" by a ghoul if he doesn't nark on Nicky and Tara. You know, Phears seems incredibly dense, no one actually knows where the parents are, yet he doesn't get the message even after incredible doses of pain to his detainees...it just feels too drawn out...a ghost that's been around for a long time and is so very powerful ought to be a bit brighter! Disappointing also is the stark admission that Max is ok and loved by his father without question for the brief and shining moment he does well at a soccer match...tisk, tisk...was this really necessary? I'm only on book 2 and I'm sick of the poor Max, he's so misunderstood shtick. I'd like to see the author move on from this and flesh out (no pun intended) the mystery of Nicky and Tara and give Max some guts for goodness sake!

For the most part, the book is fairly predictable, but I did like the ending...I won't give it away here, but it was nice to see Max take some initiative and get one over one someone else for a change! I'll continue on for a few more and see if the series improves any...I sure hope it does, because I'd hate to give it up before finding out what really happened to Nicky and Tara (and their parents) because underneath what I don't like so far, I think there's a really good scary story! I give it a B-. ( )