The In-Between Place

Unlike Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, Charmed Thirds took place over the span of four years in Jessica's life. As a result, a lot of events in Jessica's life were glossed over, and the emotional impacts of her actions weren't quite as prevalent as in the first two installments.

While Jessica's voice was just as engaging as before, I was rather unimpressed with her character. She made a lot of very poor decisions, which I'm still not sure she's learned from. A large component of college life is trying to discover who you are and what you desire from life, but it just felt like Jessica was going about it in all the wrong ways.

As Jessica's character became more and more frustrating, Marcus' character became almost saint-like. He underwent a tremendous amount of growth and self-discovery in his limited amount of page time, and I can't wait to see where this reformed bad boy is going to go next.

Jessica's parents and sister played important roles in Charmed Thirds. An important part of growing up is realizing that your parents aren't perfect and that they're human, which is something that Jessica discovers as she learned to understand and sympathize with them.

Overall, I didn't enjoy Charmed Thirds as much as I enjoyed the rest of the previous Jessica Darling books. However, I'm not ready to give up on the series quite yet, so hopefully it picks up again in the next book!