Review: The Madness Underneath (SPOILERS)

***THIS IS NOT A SPOILER-FREE REVIEW***

I know I always start my reviews by saying that I'm probably not ready to write the review, but this time I really mean it. (Warning: I will probably also really mean it if I write one for Clockwork Princess)

It's going to be difficult for me to write this review about the whole book when all I really want to do is scream about the ending, but I shall bravely venture forth and ignore the tiny wailing Mandrake in my mind as best I can.

The Madness Underneath picks up three weeks after the events of The Name of the Star. I did not reread TNotS before reading TMU, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that my brain had lost very few details so the reread wasn't really necessary (thank you, o freakish memory). Rory is living with her parents in Bristol, and she's not super excited about it or the fact that she has to see a therapist who wants to learn Things about her Personality. She's also feeling a bit lonely, as one does when one has been taken away from her school friends and her after-school-ghost-locating friends, and bored, as one feels when one is shirking her academic duties. She's so lonely and bored, in fact, that she attempts to befriend a ghost who is apparently from the 1970s and not at all impressed by the fact that she can see him. I say "attempts" because, sadly, this friendship cannot be: one touch and poof, her groovy new BFF is gone forever. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Rory has become a human terminus.

And there are more ghostly murders happening.

And they're not all done by ghosts.

And Rory's not stopping until she ends it.

I seriously loved Rory in this book. Maybe I just forgot how much I loved her in the first book, but DANG. I have never read a main character like her before-- one whose absolute favorite thing in the world is telling stories. Usually you just assume that about a narrator, right? I mean, if they're narrating the story, you may feel comfortable assuming that they like telling stories. But to Rory, it's like a drug. She gets weird. She likes telling those stories, like the ones about her Southern family that make people uncomfortable, or the ones that she thinks will shock someone enough to make them come out of a coma-- sorry, that was the ending slipping in there a little. *slaps hand* BACK ON TRACK.  Her favorite story in the world to tell is the one about how she once pet a taxidermied dog, thinking it was alive. Just saying.

Anyway, it's not long before Rory's back at Wexford, casually failing all of her classes... but she's kinda got other concerns, like sleeping until noon, getting drugged by therapists, and, um, popping homicidal ghosties. That was not a euphemism. She insists on being part of the team this time around, and being a human terminus gives her the leverage to do so. She's not going to take herself too seriously, but she's going to make darn sure nobody else thinks she's a joke.

And then, of course, there are Boo, Callum, and Stephen. Or, as I like to call them, Stephen. Don't get me wrong, I love Boo and Callum, but poor, unsmiling, serious Stephen has a special place in my heart. As Rory would say: Because, Stephen. This is the part where I get superspoilery so if you have not read the book yet, you should depart now. Or maybe you should have departed back before I said the thing about the coma.

It's now occurring to me that this book seemed really short. It's already gone in my brain as one of those books that I REMEMBER reading, but I don't remember spending any time reading. I don't think that makes sense. Sorry, the end kind of stole much of my brain functionality.

You see, this was my brain on The Name of the Star: "This Stephen is the exact opposite of Rory in every way. She's talkative and weird, he's quiet and serious. I now ship this for no reason other than it would be totally awesome."

This was my brain between the books: "I hear someone dies. I bet it's Jerome. There's no way it's going to be Stephen. Maureen knows we love him, but I don't think she knows we love him *that* much."

And this was my brain on The Madness Underneath: "Stephen didn't even give Rory his phone number and he signed his text message '-s.' And she knew who it was. That is so adorable I can't even. She risked the school's alarm 'Because, Stephen.' High adorability factor. Oh, Jerome, go away. Hey, Jerome is gone! HEY STEPHEN (not the Taylor Swift song), RORY'S AVAILABLE! You know you want her Stephen. Steeeeephen*. Oh look, Rory's making a move. SHE IS MAKING A MOVE. Lol, she said he wouldn't want to kiss her, and then she did it anyway. She's like Stephen, I don't care what you want. BUT HE WANTED IT. My ship is canon. *floats away*

two pages later: *falls back to earth and hits the ground hard*...what? No. This is not happening. You wouldn't do this to me. I trusted you, Maureen. All this time you've been obsessing about shipping, I thought you knew that a shipper's heart is fragile. I thought you cared about us, Maureen. You have betrayed me. But more importantly, you have betrayed Story."

And then I went a little bit Callum, like, HE WAS FINE. IT WAS JUST A SMALL INJURY, HE WAS TOTALLY FINE. IT'S NOT FAIR THAT AFTER EVERYTHING HE'S BEEN THROUGH, THIS IS WHAT DID IT. And I added a little AND HE DID IT FOR RORY. HE CRASHED HIS CAR ON PURPOSE TO SAVE RORY AND THEN... NO. I HATE EVERYTHING.

I just don't know what to do with myself until I get the next book, which we learned yesterday is called The Shadow Cabinet. (Oh, I also had a revelation about why The Madness Underneath is called The Madness Underneath: there is literally madness underneath. It's where all the ghosts are coming from.) I mean, she said book 3 will address The Thing That Happened. HOW? They'll probably find Stephen's ghost, right? But then what? Rory can't touch him because she's a terminus! Will they think more about what Jane and her cray-cray cult said about "destroying death"? Does it mean BRINGING PEOPLE BACK TO LIFE? Because if so, I'm all for it. They need to bring Stephen back. Not just so my ship is canon again, but because Stephen is important. Throughout the whole book, he was Rory's rock. He was the one she called when she had a problem, or a theory, or if she needed anything. Stephen's the one who takes care of things. And that was before there was anything romantic between them. It's just who he is. And yes, it's his fatal flaw that he does everything himself (I feel you, bro. INTJ represent), but who's going to do it if he's not there? Just on the few pages at the end where he's gone, you can feel the weight of his absence. It doesn't make sense that he's not there. He's one of those characters: you don't realize how important he is until he's gone, and then you can't wrap your head around the fact that he's gone. Also it's just a serious injustice that he went comatose literally hours after they became canon. I mean, what is that.

Let's recap the things that give me hope:

• the book explicitly mentions the words "destroy death" but never elaborates on what they mean. It's probably important.
• The Thing happened at the end, not the beginning. Usually when Things happen at the end of a book (especially the second book in a series), it is either reversed or made more bearable in the next book
• Story became canon
• I'm big on analyzing the first and last words/sentences in books, and the last sentence was "And I will find Stephen." This doesn't just tell me that Rory's first priority is finding Stephen's ghost, but that her priority is finding Stephen. Like maybe she can get him back.

This book could have been so much longer, but it used its few pages well and did not waste time. It's already gone down in my head as one of those books I vaguely remember reading, because I flew through it so quickly.

★★★★★

*- I did have a moment where I noticed how Stephen's head injury wouldn't stop bleeding and he wouldn't go to the hospital, and I was like, "don't tell me he's going to sleep and not wake up."  I brushed it off because I thought if Stephen was going to die, it would be at the hands of some murderous ghost.