Review: Behind These Blue Eyes by Cecilia Randell

Behind These Blue Eyes (The Adventures Of Blue Faust #1.5)
by Cecilia Randell

My Rating: 3 stars

Genre: Portal Fantasy/ Science Fiction Romance
Age Category: Young Adult
Type of romance: Reverse Harem

Blurb:
Between the adventures…

Blue and her friends made it back to Earth. The adventures are over, and all that’s left is to clean up the aftermath.
She’s dealing with police, rumors and rivalries at school, nightmares and increasingly distant friends. Maybe it’s an adventure of a new kind but it feels more like the end of them.

So, Blue comes up with a new plan:
Get Phe and Kevin together, officially
Get Forrest out of his house
And figure out why she can’t stop thinking about a certain red-haired clansman, and what she’d going to do about it.

***Note: This is a short novella, not a full-length book, and covers the period after Blue’s first adventure, and before her next.***

My Review

I really enjoyed the first book in this series and happily moved on to this book, which is set between the first and second books. Where book 1 ended with an epilogue where they decide to go back, in Behind These Blue Eyes we basically go back in time and see how Blue and the others are doing being back home on Earth and how/ why they eventually make the decision to go back.

I thought it was nice to get insight into how everyone is doing while being back to Earth. The author really shows how they struggle and the weight of their adventures is felt. This series has a lighthearted adventurous vibes, but also dips into more serious topics. In this book that’s the pain of loss, as well as fear and guilt. Everyone is struggling with what happened and I liked how the author explores these topics. The later half is a bit more upbeat again as things go better and the friendships are getting tighter again.

While I enjoyed this story, I also felt it isn’t fully necessary. I enjoy the parts in the other worlds more and this book has almost none of the science fiction/ fantasy elements. I kinda kept waiting for that element to be back in the story. I am happy I read it, but at the same time I didn’t enjoy it as much as book 1. I am excited for the next book when they go back to Karan.

This book mostly shines in my opinion in the character development. I liked gettign to see more of Blue and how she is doing and even how she’s struggling and also how she dealt with what she’s going through. I like how she is there for her friends and how she helps them through this and they help her. I especially was happy when they bring up talk of going back to Karan. There is a bit of relationship development here as the connection between Blue and Forest deepens and I liked seeing that.

To summarize: Behind These Blue Eyes is a shorter read set in between books 1 and 2. It mainly focuses on showing how the characters are dealing with what happened in book 1. There’s some character development and a bit of focus on the harder topics like grief, guilt and fear. There’s also some looking to the future and what’s next. I enjoyed the read, but at the same time I didn’t enjoy it as much as book 1 as I wanted to go back to Karan. I liked how this book has some character development and deepens some relationships.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.