I don’t even know where to start with this review. I don’t even know how to write this review without spoiling anything because I’ve just finished reading this so my brain is full of what I’ve just read. So I’m sorry if a few things don’t make sense but this book is so hard to review without any spoilers.

Hades is the second book in the Halo trilogy and thank God *excuse the pun* that this was slightly better.

Is love a great enough power against evil? Bethany believes so – after all, the love of her angel siblings and her boyfriend Xavier saved her from the clutches of Hell itself.

But when Jake returns to town, he may be able to destroy everything she cares about.

Will Jake’s actions shatter Beth’s faith in love? Or can she overcome heartache and betrayal to find her way back to Xavier?

Ok first of all, yes this book is better than Halo – but not by much.

The main plot in this book is much darker than the first installment in the series and I found the darker approach much better (well, I say darker but nothing bad really happens to Bethany – again.) This is one of the things that I find so frustrating with the series. When evil comes along to try and ruin Beth’s life, nothing bad happens to her. She might get a few scratches here and there and be threatened, but nothing bad is ever done to her and it’s annoying.

There was also some terrible writing in this book. Absolutely terrible. How Adornetto ever got away with it, I have no idea. I actually noted down some of the rubbish writing so I could share it with you guys. So here you, a few amazingly awful quotes from Hades:

– “Little did we know they would find us before we had a chance to find them.” 
If you follow me on Goodreads, you will know that I had a little rant about this sentence. After I read this, I noticed how much unneeded foreshadowing Adornetto did. What’s the point in telling us that bad stuff is going to happen before it does? Why not leave out the in-your-face foreshadowing and give us a bit of a shock?

– “I wanted them to know that Taylah was out there still, only now she was free. I wanted to tell them about Heaven and the peace she would find there. But of course, sharing any of that knowledge was impossible. Not only would I be breaking our most secret code and exposing our presence on Earth…”
SHE HAS ALREADY TOLD XAVIER WHAT SHE IS! SHE HAS ALREADY BROKEN THE “MOST SECRET CODE’. What a huge contradiction on Adornetto’s part. This is terrible. And Bethany stupid.

– “Are you okay, Huggie Bear?’ I asked, protectively reaching up to fix his hair.”
Beth just called Xavier “Huggie Bear”. What. What writer even does that? I mean, I’ve heard of ridiculous nicknames for your other half but ‘Huggie Bear’? That should be made illegal. *shudders* Just no.

– “When Big Daddy fell from grace…”
Yup. Lucifer is called ‘Big Daddy’ in this by his followers. I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WORSE, HUGGIE BEAR OR BIG DADDY! And the description of Lucifer (there’s no way I’m calling him Big Daddy) is all wrong, but I’m not even going to go into that because we’d be here all day.

As you can see, I came across some appalling writing and ideas in this book. HOWEVER! Even though nothing bad happened to Bethany (not really, anyway. A few minor incidents here and there, but still…) I found the story much more gripping than Halo.

My favourite part of this book was an exorcism scene. It’s like it was ripped right from the pages of a Supernatural script. Adornetto’s writing during this scene surpassed anything I had read during the series and blew my mind. It was fantastic. The way she described the demon possession, the surroundings of the building and how the creature moved was breathtaking and it’s a scene that I will always remember for being brilliant. I don’t know why Adornetto couldn’t keep writing like this.

I can’t say much else about this book without revealing what happens but just know this: even though there is some terrible writing, Adornetto has got a good story going here, she’s got some really good ideas and the darkness of the book worked so much better than Halo. Yes, there was still Bethany and Xavier confessing their undying love for each other all of the time (shut up, already – no one cares), and the ending was absolutely ridiculous but this book was definitely better than Halo

Now onto the third and final book… Heaven. Fingers crossed that I don’t drive myself mad reading it.