No, The Mime Order is not a book about the history of the art of white-faced comedy based in controlled body movement, but the sequel to The Bone Season. Try not to hold your disappointment against it.

The Mime Order picks up right where The Bone Season ended, just don’t ask me where that was. Seriously, I can’t remember a lot of the first book in this series, and there were points early on during the first few chapters of this sequel when I thought about starting the series all over again. But… No… What I can say is even though I can’t remember how, Paige survived the camp of repressed clairvoyants who had been taken from their lives as a part of the London underground, and is now back in the city. However, with the knowledge she now has about the true structure of her world, she cannot return to the life she once had. Now she wants to do more than just thrive within the system she has grown accustomed to; she wants to change it.

Change won’t come easy for Paige, and it won’t really come in this book either (expect that in book three) thanks in large part to those who are more than happy with how things are. Jaxon, the leader of the gang Paige calls family, is the ever present threat to Paige’s happiness and desire for revolution seeing as he is more than satisfied with his throne, and he remains the main antagonist for a large part in this story as the true bad guys remain behind the scenes. He’s more frustrating than anything, but the storyline he is a part of comes up big in the climax of the book (more on that later).

Now back to the Big Bad. The Rephaim, these humanoid, spirit world, alien, what-have-you beings are none-too-happy with Paige and the rest of the clairvoyants for what they did their colony in their escape, so now Paige is enemy number one with a big target on her back. You’d think this would keep her from going about town, but honestly she doesn’t act as cautious as she probably should. Granted, the book would be pretty boring if she had to stick to her room all day everyday. For one thing, if that were the case then she wouldn’t be able to go out and find her love interest from the first book. Just saying, I would have appreciated the built up anxiety had it ever truly felt like Paige’s freedom was being threatened.

For those of you who enjoyed the tension between Paige and Warden, her Rephaim captor within the camp, you’ll find yourself largely disappointed with The Mime Order because he’s missing for most of the first half of the book. When they do finally come together, the relationship building is pretty non-existent as they basically jump right into things together, more intent than I expected considering most stories handle these situations with more hesitation and resistance then these two have. I would say this could have been written much better because it seemed like a sudden decision, but again, this could speak to how much not remembering the contents of The Bone Season influenced my response to this storyline. Or it could just be as thin as it seemed to be.

At this point in the story I was feeling like The Mime Order was simply just going to end up being filler between book one and three, good but not great, but eventually things pick up again. The culmination of the mystery Paige is trying to solve within the clairvoyant community, as well as the final battle to find a new leader, really breathed new life into this book. I don’t want to give anything away in concern to the climax of the book, but just know that the story does not disappoint in regard to finding a new mime-lord, so-much-so that I want these books to be made into movies just so I can see this scene.

Even when the love story of The Bone Season series severely lacks in The Mime Order, the mystery, exposition of the Rephaim and their connection to the world (as well as other world building), and culmination of the search for new leadership among the clairvoyants keeps the series moving forward at a steady pace, and I can’t wait to see what book three has in store.

Final Grade: 4 out of 5      Follow @BewareOfTrees