GRAVE DANGER

The Dork Lord returns.

In this follow-up to 2020’s Confessions of a Dork Lord, Wick—or Azrael Bal Gorath the Wicked—remains a ne’er-do-well White tween desperate for his people’s approval. When a big gamble doesn’t pay off, Wick is thrown out of his own castle and banished to a far-off land as an exchange student. Wick does his best to make the most of things, chronicling his plan for vengeance in his journal along with his petty grievances, his loneliness, and his quest for friendship. The novel continues its predecessor’s stylization as a mashup of Dungeons & Dragons and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but where the first entry erred by indulging its uneven pace, this sequel tightens things up. The weight of the worldbuilding is still a bit of a drag during the novel’s opening pages, but once everything is laid out readers will slip easily enough into this fantasy-shaded tale of the struggles of a snarky underdog. The course correction is admirable, though the novel is just as overlong as the series opener. A little bit of Wick and his world goes a long way, and readers will get far too much of him here. Wick’s unpleasant nature continues to be a bug rather than a feature, and so this entry clocks in as a mixed bag. Altés’ illustrations add an amusing touch.

A slightly improved second entry in a clunky series.