The Dazzling Heights (Thousandth Floor Book 2) Kindle Edition

Book 1 was good. Book 2 was great. Starting book 3 tonight. I've been seriously neglecting my family for the last 2 days. I didn't realize how quickly I've devoured these books until i checked my Good Reads account to see when i started book 2 (24 hours ago). The characters are much more developed & organic now. In book 1 i kept confusing Leda&Eris. I keep flip-flopping in who i am rooting for. Great story!

This story is the dystopian cross of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars. Filled with drama. It definitely sucks you in for the ride.

What an incredible book! I absolutely loved The Dazzling Heights and couldn’t put it down. It’s even more fast-paced than The Thousandth Floor, with electrifying secrets and twisty romances, all set in a bright future world.I have found that sequels, especially in young adult series, often fall short of the first book. That was absolutely not the case here. If anything, my obsession with this series only grew! I love how Katharine deepened the relationships between the characters, making the rich and tangled web of their various relationships feel even more satisfying. There was an unexpected romance between two characters that I found myself shipping IMMEDIATELY! And a villain redeemed (which is so much more unusual than just killing off your villains, because it requires so much more work for the author. So props to Katharine for pulling that off). I also love that we got to see more of the future world in this book. It’s such a refreshing change from the dark futures of all the other YA novels right now.*spoilers ahead*I’ve seen some reviewers angry that the surprise death at the end wasn’t Avery. But I actually like that!! I mean, isn’t Avery the predictable choice? I like that in each of these books, the person who dies is pretty much the LAST character you expect. It really keeps you guessing!!Overall if you’re a fan of dramatic procedurals set in exciting high-stakes worlds, I think you will love this book!!

I loved the first volume of "The Thousandth Floor" series. I liked the second volume, but "The Dazzling Heights" just didn't live up to my expectations.Again we are enveloped in complex teen drama. (That's what we're here for, am I right?) Leda Cole became the villain of volume one, in the end blackmailing the other main characters with vicious malice. But something inexplicable happens in volume two. Leda is stalking and harassing her victims to keep them in line, and exploiting Watt both mentally (via Nadia) and sexually. I found it gross and came to hate her as a character, whereas in "The Thousandth Floor" I had seen her as a very strong, cunning female character whom I admired even if I didn't particularly like her. In "The Dazzling Heights" she is a true villain who can't seem to even speak a civil word to another human being. Which is fine, if that's what the author was aiming for. But spontaneously, without buildup or cause, Leda apologizes to everyone and wants to be friends again (or for the first time, in Rylin's case). Then she becomes very weak-willed and reliant upon Watt for her safety and security. It was very abrupt so I wasn't ready to forgive her, although, surprisingly, all the other characters were. It was too sudden a change for it to make any sense in the plot.A new player is introduced in "The Dazzling Heights": Calliope Brown. I. Loved. Her. (And, if you listen to the audiobook, the narrator, who never changes her voice from character to character, affects a British accent for Calliope and her mother. And it's not half-bad.) Calliope and her mother are con artists who travel the globe, robbing the rich to feed their insatiable need for attention and luxury. Calliope has history with a couple of the characters, which is a surprise to her, and adds drama to the mix. She is also portrayed as a potential love interest for Atlas, giving Avery a run for her money. I found her to be one of the most complex characters in the series to date, and while she is set up to emerge as the series' next lead villain, she's someone I couldn't help but like.I found "The Dazzling Heights" to have some continuity issues that really broke the flow of the story. Characters will engage in an activity and then later it's portrayed that no such thing happened. (For example, Leda and Watt hook up, then later she thinks to herself how she would never go there with him. But...she already did? And there is a time when Leda insists she had one drink, but then Rylin's chapter follows and she reminisces about having just had three drinks with Leda.)The timeline was also very confusing. One minute, Leda is at rehab. The next, she's been home for weeks and has done things that we're just told of, not shown, later on. It was impossible to keep up with the flow of time. It seemed like only three days or so passed, but it was supposedly an entire semester? I'm still lost. For me, I felt this book needed some better editing for continuity.The technology remains an interesting attribute of this sci-fi series, and is probably its strongest facet. I was especially impressed by the portrayal of fimography in the future as holography and enjoyed the way Rylin's relationship with her attractive young professor, Xiayne, developed. The student/teacher trope is a guilty pleasure of mine, though this one had a lot of buildup only to suddenly dive off a cliff with little fanfare. I'm hoping for an addendum in the next volume, but at this rate, I suspect it won't even be mentioned again.There is one thing I have to mention that has been bothering me since the first volume, because it's become a trend in this series. All the minority characters are either villains or get killed off. In recent years there has been a lot of attention on the way TV series tend to kill their lesbian characters (see "bury your gays"), and "The Thousandth Floor" falls right into that pit. And the worst character of all, the drug addict who sexually exploits a guy and blackmails her female friends, is the one specified black character. Young adult (and, really, all) authors should be more aware of what they're doing when they heap all these negative connotations onto their minority characters. Don't bother putting us in your book if your only reason is for the white guy to win and for the straight people to get their happily ever afters.

The first book was so good when I found the second I was excited. It did not dissapoint. Although there are a few different story lines to follow I wasn't sure which way they would go with a follow up but it all flowed together so well...a new story but still seamlessly integrates with the first.

These kids...wow...the second book in this trilogy did not disappoint. But I’m still not sure if there’s more than one ore two redeemable characters in the group. Wow. Just goes to show that money makes you crazy. So does grief. And anger. And well, emotion in general.The characters in this book went through a whirlwind of emotions as they moved on with life after the end of the first book (no spoilers). More secrets were uncovered and more hidden, more questions than answers, more greed and more heartbreak.These characters are growing on me in a lot of ways even though there are moments I wanted to slap every single one of them. But maybe they’re learning?I guess that will be known in book three...If you like futuristic young adult novels with lying and cheating and teen angst and first loves and revenge and a whole lot of technology, then this book series is for you.

Book was received in perfect condition