Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com

Flora Fydraaca is one busy young lady.

Between her search for a Gramatica instructor, dealing with the fallout of her best friend Udo's moneymaking schemes in the bounty-hunting biz, elder sister Idden's desertion from Califa's military, discovering and thwarting the source of a series of deadly earthquakes threatening the city, a freshly sober and keenly aware father, a burgeoning crush on Califa's greatest living magickal adept and old Fydraaca family enemy Lord Axacaya, tentacles accosting her in public bathrooms, family secrets, assassination attempts, and inadequate sartorial resources - it's a wonder the girl has time to breathe.

At least this time around, Crackpot Manor's one and only accessible potty is up and running...

There is so much going on in FLORA'S DARE that it's by no means an overstatement to call the book a fantasy fiction lover's treasure trove. Author Ysabeau S. Wilce has done a remarkable job creating and populating Flora's world with multiple, complex plots and subplots, and plenty of intriguing information to keep readers coming back for more.

I deeply appreciated the level of sophistication Ms. Wilce has invested in the creation of Flora's world. She easily juggles plot threads without causing any confusion to the reader. By building the backstory of Flora's friends, family, adversaries, and the heroine herself into the narrative, she has created a series that will sustain itself over a number of books, striking the perfect balance between a compelling story and characters that are quirky yet deeply flawed. ( )

This is the sequel to Flora Segunda, so I was a little nervous jumping right in since it was over a year ago that I read the first. Well, I needn't have worried. In an entertaining summary that starts out with an odd "what I learned..." essay, Flora breezily narrates her prior adventures and goes right into the current problem. She wants to learn Gramatica (the language of magick), but she has to find a way to get in touch with one of three magick users in Califa, without her parents knowing. In an attempt to do just that, she and Udo go to a club (after telling her parents that they were going to be somewhere else, a place with puppets, where all the 12-year-olds go, not the fourteen-year-olds), where Flora gets attacked by a tentacle while attempting to use the bathroom and Udo zombifies notorious outlaw Springheel Jack.

I had a lot of fun with this book. I don't remember why, but I gave the first in the series 4 stars. With this one, I found it inventive and original and liked seeing details from Book 1 crop up again in unexpected ways. The ending is not a cliffhanger, but still leaves room for a sequel that I'll eagerly away. ( )

Ysabeau Wilce needs to write faster. These books are just an absolute delight, and I think I liked Flora's Dare even better than I liked Flora Segunda. Mysteries are solved, more crop up, and Flora's family is fleshed out. Flora is a fabulously believable character who grows and changes in believable ways, despite the fantastical nature of her adventures. I can't wait for the third one! I should probably note that this installment is quite a bit more violent than the first, so while Flora Segunda straddled the line neatly between juvenile and YA fiction, Flora's Dare is much more of a YA novel. ( )

I love Flora! She is just so real, in how she thinks, behaves, and explains things! Her world is so much like a cartoon, but better. With bigger than life stories, a strange world where things are described brightly, but with hints of darkness, and unexpectedness in every corner.

I think its better than the first one. The author seems more settled in who Flora is (or maybe Flora has partly found herself). Its one of the few books where everything is so vividly described that I actually see it, as I read it. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2009/03... ( )