This could have been an entertaining book, but Maile Meloy's sequel to "The Apothecary" is unfortunately a much weaker offering. Not only does Meloy chronically underuse her character Janie, she introduces new characters almost at will, dropping them again a few pages later, without realizing their full potential. The plot is choppy, with large segments that do not drive the plot forward sufficiently and make it more jumbled. The ending is, in parts saccharine, and feels like an afterthought.Wha...

Oh, the joys of an unsolicited ARC that turns out to be the sequel to a book you enjoyed. Prior to the arrival of this book on my doorstep, I had no idea that there would be a sequel to The Apothecary, nor did I have a specific hankering for one. However, since I did like the first, I was excited to discover what would transpire in this installment. Well, lucky me, The Apprentices is an even better read than The Apothecary, maturer in plot, writing and characterization.Where The Apothecary was v...

Sometimes, when I am enduring a book hangover, it is difficult for me to get into another book. Luckily, right when I was finishing an amazing novel, I saw the beautifully illustrated cover of The Apprerentices by Maile Meloy. When the first book in this series, The Apothacary, came out, I could not recommend it to enough people, so imaging how happy I was to not only find out that there was a sequel, but that there was a copy waiting for me. In The Apprentices, Meloy follows up the adventures o...

Normally I would give a summary of the book first, but I really had no idea what was going on. There were at least 3 perspectives, which made the book somewhat confusing, and the change of setting along with the characters made the book altogether very confusing. After reading The Apothecary, I had high hopes for this book. The beginning was exciting, when it was just Janie and her experiment. But then came Pip, Jin Lo, Ben and too many characters to keep track of. I read it eagerly, waiting for...

This book had so much potential after the masterpiece that is The Apothecary #1. But it just fell so short of my expectations. I feel that this book may have even ruined the first one for me a little, and I don't think I'm going to read the third instalment of the series. The ONLY thing I enjoyed about this book was Raffaelo, the beautiful Italian boy. If it weren't for him, this review would be 2 stars instead of 3. *warning: minor spoilers*The whole book felt so dry and predictable. Janie and...

This second installment was a hot mess. I don't care to take the time to review it all. The motivations were silly, the exact-right-time coincidences were too plentiful, and anything having to do with Jin Lo was nonsensical and irrelevant. Can't decide if I'm going to finish out the series or not.

Second in the series. Maile Meloy deals with important issues (such as nuclear weapons) while telling an addictive story!

This sequel to The Apothecary continues the story of Janie, Benjamin and Pip. It takes place three years after the first book and the three friends are all separated. Janie is attending a private boarding school in the U.S. and working on a science project to desalinate water quickly and inexpensively. But the closer she gets to a solution, the more danger she seems to be in. Benjamin is traveling with his father, the apothecary, in the jungles of Vietnam, helping to heal the wounded in the war....

Two years after the events in The Apothecary 16-year-old Janie is attending school in New Hampshire. All she knows about Ben and his father is they are somewhere trying to save the world against the looming nuclear threat. She's keeping busy with an experiment to desalinate ocean water. Her experiment piques the interest of her roommate's father. Suddenly, Janie finds herself expelled from school and her experiment gone. To get it back, she's finds a way to contact Benjamin and unknowingly sets

I received an advance copy of The Apprentices. This is the review I wrote for LibraryThing Early Reviewers:This book, The Apprentices, is the sequel to Meloy's The Apothecary in which the reader is first introduced to the main characters, Janie and Benjamin. The reader of The Apprentices is gently informed/reminded of the events in the previous book allowing immediate entry to the story. The characters are well-developed as is the plot, with well-timed twists to keep the reader's interest. The m...

So, The Apprentices picks up several years after The Apothecary. Janie is 16 and in boarding school. There a lot of things I don't want to spoil, so it'll be hard to talk about the plot. Overall, I enjoyed the novel. Meloy has a lovely voice in both The Apothecary and The Apprentices, and there are plenty of new characters. I felt perhaps that there might have been a little too much going on, though, from too many points of view. The ending chapter didn't give me a lot of closure, either.I wante...

On June 4th, 2013, the release date of this book, The Apprentices, my alarm clock woke me up at 9:00 AM, I got onto the library's website to see if they had the book, AND LOW AND BEHOLD! The Apprentices was there! So I put on some clothes really quick and drove there to spirit the book away and devour the words. And I did devour the words: I'm a slow reader and this is the first (400 page) book I've finished in ONE DAY! Yay!That said, it was amazing. The first book in the series, The Apothecary,...

Entertaining, I liked the first one better though. Janie gets caught up in yet more desperate, mysterious trouble; Benjamin and his father have an extremely rough time wherever they go; and Jin Lo is haunted by her past. Side effects of this book include frustration and confusion. A good audiobook. Warning: there is some language and a married character has a mistress.

I received this book free through Goodreads First Reads. I really enjoyed this book. Having not read the first book in the series, it was easy to fall into the story. The characters are not all children, and the interaction between them was at many times touching. The adventures are non-stop, and take place within an authentic historical backdrop. There are spear wielding natives, wealthy sultans, machine gun fire, first kisses, broken hearts and harrowing sea journeys. Adventure readers of al...