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... ( )

Fantastic book. ( )