The first installment of Paola Santiago was one of my favorite MG fantasy reads of 2020, so I was REALLY excited for the sequel! And Tehlor Kay Mejia definitely did it again. The way the characters are developed, the way their inner worlds come to life on the pages, the adventures they find themselves in, the way Mejia incorporates family and heritage and culture, the ways in which issues that face youth are incorporated into these fantasy worlds, the world-building itself: all brilliant. I have literally nothing even remotely critical to say about this one, and I remain a staunch supporter of everything Tehlor Kay Mejia touches. I can’t wait to see what’s next, for Paola and her friends and whoever else Mejia decides to create.

Thank you endlessly to the publisher and NetGalley for this advance copy!

How did I forget to review this? Better late than never. Paola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares has just the right amount of suspense, mythology, and scares for most middle-grade readers.

This sequel in the Paola Santiago series will once again intrigue readers. I love Paola as a leading protagonist. She is flawed in everyday that is realistic and endearing. She tries to be her true self but in the same process is struggling to fully understand her whole self. Her relationships reflect the whole scope of how relationships are fluid and not always a positive experience. Especially between a girl and boy relationship. I loved the more deep dive into Hispanic folklore and how well Mejia did in bringing them to life. The only negative I had was the pacing of the book. Sometimes it did seem to drag a little in some points.

Paola Santiago manages to both follow the general pattern of the "Percy Jackson" style books and to do it's own thing. While the plot follows the standard - a quest that takes tweens across the country and into the path of a number of monsters and complications - the character details and their relationships are unique. Mejia keeps the pacing tight but leaves enough room for conversation and reflection.

This is the sequel to the first book, River of Tears, and it was even better than the first!
we see Paola mature even more in this one and the PLOT TWIST absolutely killed me. Dante defects to the other side, and especially after seeing his apprehension in book one, followed by him and Paola getting together, the start of this book felt like whiplash!

This one just didn't click for me like the first book did. Maybe it was the loss of Paola's friendships with Dante and Emma, or how she just made some weird choices. I also felt like Emma was a bit of a Mary Sue. I do love learning about new-to-me folklore, and I will probably read this one again before I decide for sure not to purchase it for my library, but right now I'm not feeling it.

(NOTE: I am basing this review on the finished audiobook)

Another solid addition to the universe of Rick Riordan presents! This is a series that is sure to draw you in, and keep you reading! An excellent recommendation for anyone who loves the Percy Jackson series.

A fantastic addition to the Paola Santiago series. I loved how we got the chance to see Paola grow as a person that takes charge instead of letting her fear take control. I can’t wait to give my students a chance to read this book. I eagerly grab all of the Rick Riordan Presents books and they never disappoint. I like how he’s choosing authors to bring their native mythology to life for a whole new set of children. Tehlor Kay Mejia does a phenomenal job of bringing Mexican mythology to the masses.

Paolo is a 13 year-old girl who can see ghosts. More than that, she can defeat them, but only at risk to herself. In this sequel to Paolo Santiago and the River of Tears, Paolo has somewhat lost touch with her friends Emma and Dante - or has she? Paolo is once again caught up in the supernatural world of Mexican lore as she struggles to save her friends, find her father, and keep her mother's boyfriend from moving in. This was a fun and fascinating look into a mythology I know little about, and i look forward to reading more books by this author.

This started out a bit slow but really picked up. The story line was unique and full of surprises. I know it’s a middle grade book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The ended left where you could picture some of the third book. I’m curious if Dante and his abuela are going to continue on or not. Or if Beto will stay.

Paola Santiago has come fresh with her first encounter with the supernatural and is not being given much of chance to reflect before jumping into her next challenge. So far I have enjoyed all of the entries in the Rick Riordan Presents series and this book was an excellent addition. I had not read the first book in this series, but I had no problem in following the story and looking at picking up the first entry to find out more about Paolo.

Wonderful, captivating sequel. I can’t wait until my Mexican American children are old enough to read this series with me and see themselves in Paola and Dante. I love how effortlessly Mexican culture is woven into this series and can’t wait for the next installment!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an early copy to read and review. I read this what feels like 100 years ago and forgot to write my review. So, this is going to be short and to the point. I really enjoyed this book. There’s really no surprise there. I loved all of Mejia’s other books and I’ve really enjoyed all of the Rick Riordan Presents books.
Paola is really struggling in this second book, so when she thinks that she needs to find her father, she gets the gang back together again.
I think the only thing I didn’t like about this book was that there was so much conflict between the three friends. Dante was just plain mean to Paola at times for reasons that we never got to see. All of the conflict happened off the page after the end of the first book and before this book started. I would have liked to have gotten to see that conflict rather than been told about it because it takes such a large amount of this book for Paola to work through these issues with her friends. So, this book was really missing the wonderful friendship aspect that we got from the first book.
Aside from that, I really liked this. Paola must stand up and face danger and adventure on her own this time. We get to see some familiar faces from the first book, which is always fun. I love the mythology and the world building that we get to see. I don’t know much about Mexican folklore, so all of the monsters and creatures were unique to me and so interesting to read about. I will absolutely be continuing this series and recommending it to others.

If there's one thing Tehlor Kay Mejia is gonna do, it's frightening the heck out of my inner 10-year-old.

Taking place six months after the first book's events, Paola Santiago is back-ish. She's more distant from everyone, having really bad nightmares that may or may not be Telling Her Something, and overall just having a Not Great Time. As someone who was around Paola's age when my mom acquired her boyfriend, whose every move was gratingly annoying (y'know, because you're a kid and angry all the time), I found myself nodding along to this book's opening few pages.

In all seriousness, though, this was such a blast. The fractured relationships between the characters - and how the inciting incident somehow manages to make them worse - is explored in such an interesting way. It was so easy to get back to little me and put myself in Pao's shoes and just completely understand her while also having my adult brain wanting to give her a big hug and tell her everything's gonna be okay. Despite maybe not being as action packed as the first installment, I really liked this one and so did my baby cousin when we read it together, so I consider this a smashing success.

I absolutely loved this funky little middle grade and I can't waittt for the next one. MORE SPOOKY LATINX MIDDLE GRADE PLEASEEE.

This book was very entertaining. I like the the Mexican beliefs were included in the story. The book was very good at dealing with relationships with friends and how there can be a falling out with somw=eone you considered close. The main character is dealing with self doubt and whether she is worthy of having friends , while also trying to save her friend's grandmother and getting answers about her own past. I found it fast paced and fun. The characters were relatable .

As a huge Mejia and Paola fan, I really wanted to love this story. I just struggled a lot more than I have with any of her other tales. There is a significant gap of time between the first and the second book, with events that seemed out of character for our best friend trio. But, at the same time, I remember being a middle schooler who had to deal with the ways that relationships shift and change, so I know that there are middle schoolers who will relate deeply to this. I didn't rate this, because I didn't think it would be fair for me to do so. The writing is excellent. The adventures begin pretty much immediately. It just wasn't the right timing for me to read. I plan to buy and try again in the future.

Based on an ARC from Netgalley.

<i>"I'm a self-taught, seventh-grade scientist, not a white lady with a podcast about true crimes!"</i>

TL;DR: A perfectly <i>fine</i> sequel, with better pacing than the first book but some clunky, almost forced attempts at *more* diversity (particularly with Emma's emerging queerness).
Paola is up to her hijinks again -- this time, her mom has a new boyfriend who may or may not be moving in them, so she overthinks it and, instead of talking with her mother, sets off a chain reaction that leads to her looking for her long absent father and losing her best friend Dante to the void.

Vibes: Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson + Mexican/Latin American mythology.

Genre: Middle-Grade. Second in a series.

Character MVP: Eh. Maybe Paola's friends, Emma & Naomi. It's hard to be in the head of a middle-grade character all the time, so perhaps her friends are more engaging because we don't get their every thought.

Verdict: 3.5 stars -- currently rounding down. This book was *fine.*
And I get it -- it's a middle-grade book.
But the thing is, adults can -- and should! -- read middle-grade books too; some of my absolute favorites are considered "middle-grade" but they have a broad audience. (I'm thinking of <i>A Wrinkle In Time</i> and Percy Jackson mainly, but also Scott Reingten's Talespinners series, or any of Roald Dahl's books, TBH.)
But this book is definitely a middle-grade book geared primarily towards middle-grade readers.

The biggest strength of this series, this book included, has been its representation: Paola is a Latina heroine, interested in science and STEM. She's spunky and brave and active. And her culture -- the stories her mother told her growing up -- are woven into the fabric and heart of the story, and that's absolutely wonderful. The different mythologies are (as I'm pretty sure Rick Riordan intended with this series) the best part of the story, because the reader, myself included, gets to learn about different cultures and experiences than the ones they grew up with.

But Paola is a middle-grade girl and there are some parts that make an older reader cringe and eyeroll so hard.
And I get it. I'm not a middle-school girl anymore. (Thank goodness.) But I don't think you're doing your readers or your protagonist any favors when your character jumps to the first conclusion that crosses her mind.
Like the boyfriend moving in: Paola is supposed to be smart, and I get that she's had a rough few months, but it seems like the mom's boyfriend was introduced to (1) draw attention to the fact that Paola's dad isn't there and (2) give Paola a reason to lash out. Which...felt unnecessary to me. Shouldn't a girl who was so interested in science think to *ask* her mom first? Why does the middle-grade-hormonal reaction have to trump the scientific one?

That's a pet peeve of mine, in general, though: when authors create conflict that seems unnecessary because a simple conversation would have cleared it up.

At the end of my review of the first book, I indicated that I thought Paola and her mom would have had a big heart-to-heart about everything, but, NOPE. That didn't happen, and it didn't happen here.

Same goes for Paola and Dante -- and that just read as inconsistent to me. I *get* that they're middle-schoolers, and having hard conversations isn't exactly in their age-appropriate skill set. The conflict there also felt a little forced; she was *so* ready to believe him when he turned on her. And, really? After everything they've been through her first thought was somehow NOT "Hmm, that's weird, maybe something supernatural is happening"?!?

Again, this book was fine. I'd probably recommend it to my kids but it would be a library book, rather than a "have-on-the-shelf-at-home" purchase.

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

We're back and so are the terrors. Paola has to face leyenas, fantasmas, changing friendships and saving her dad and Dante's grandmother.

Themes include issues lgbtq youth and adults face, social and economic differences, dealing with change and overcoming obstacles. This was an amazing follow up and I can't wait for the next installment.

Paola santiago and the forest of nightmares by Tehlor Kay Mejia is the second installment in this middle grade trilogy! I really enjoyed this one I think I loved the first book more than this one though. For me this book was a little slow in the beginning but it picked up halfway through I littearly read the last half in one sitting and that cliffhanger though! How am I supposed to wait until summer 2022 for the third book?! So overall I gave this sequel a 4 stars!(:

I really enjoyed the first book in this series and I was happy to get an advanced copy of the second book from NetGalley! Another adventurous story about Paola and her friends! I like that this book covers topics about real life and relationships along with the fantasy, monsters and supernatural aspect of it. I enjoyed how this story story kept me guessing and I'm hoping there will be more stories about this group of friends in the future.