"Mr. Terupt Falls Again" by Rob Buyea

I just want to state that the title |is misleading. Mr. Terupt does not, in fact, have a devastating fall. Personally, I'm really happy about that, because Mr. Terupt Falls Again could have been basically a plot repeat of the original, and it wasn't. Way to go, Buyea!| Yeah, this post will be a spoiler-tag-filled ramble.

Mr. Terupt Falls Again has this underlying theme of "ignorance is bliss, but is it really?" going on. Honestly, the book has a lot of intermingled layers, with one or other surfacing at different times. So yeah, we have the "ignorance is bliss" layer. (The book's conclusion seems to be that ignorance is bliss, but only if you're also ignorant of the fact that you're ignorant in the first place, because if you know you don't know something then you start worrying about it and are no longer blissful, and if you know bits and pieces you'll want to find out more and aren't blissful either.) (Wow, that felt like "I know you know I know you know I know".)

Also, Alexia (the one who uses "like" way too much, though her usage has decreased from about 1900% more than necessary to more like 400% more than necessary) falls in with some baaaad influences. And, unlike everyone who gets labeled as baaaad influences in book 1 (hint: |Anna and her mom|), these guys  actually are baaaad influences. (I'm not bothering with spoiler tags because these guys show up in the beginning of the book and we can tell that they're obviously baaaad influences.) There's another layer for you. (Well, when I said "guys", I meant one guy and two girls, and the guy--who |has "weed" and vodka at different points| and generally behaves like the teen everyone tells you "don't be that guy" about, and eventually gets arrested and sent to rehab--is the main corrupting influence.)

There's also another layer of Mr. Terupt's |head trauma from the previous book|, which Peter |perpetually (and understandably) feels terrible about| and Luke |researches on the internet (silly boy, you should never research medical conditions on the internet)|. Like I said, lots of layers (subplots?).

Also, Jeffery finds |an abandoned baby| in a shoebox on the side of the road, which ends up being the catalyst for |his parents finally un-shellifying after his older brother's death|. It also makes several of the characters do a double take and go |"wait, really? what kind of jerkface would abandon a baby?"|, which I found completely plausible. There's a layer for ya.

Also, yeah, you may have noticed I labeled this "a kissing book". That too is a layer (number four, I think?). There's a lot more romance in this one, with the final pairings being |Terupt and Newberry|, |Alexia and Peter|, |Anna and Jeffery|, and |Luke and Jessica|; |personally, I think all the pairings are quite natural, and that we were all going "Terupt and Newberry sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-SOMETHIN'-SOMETHIN'-T!" since about the last fifth of book 1. To confuse people who don't highlight spoilers, this is a sentence that ends in| potato soup. 

Also, Danielle's grandmother Evelyn |gets a heart attack, learns about forgiveness (woot woot woot woot woot!), and accepts Anna and her mom as not baaaad influences. This sentence, for reasons of further confusion, also ends in| the aforementioned potato soup.

Also, we get to know how to pronounce Mr. Terupt's name! It's "tare-upt". In-universe, he gets annoyed when people pronounce it wrong.

This one gets three stars, because a bunch of the main characters |hit puberty, and more than half or them are girls. I mostly skimmed those parts.|

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ again, for the same reason (though everyone knows about [THIS IS THE SAME AGE-RESTRICTED SPOILER FROM THE LAST ONE, SO NOT-YET-TEENAGERS GO AWAY] |Anna's mom's teenage pregnancy| by now, so it's not as big of a plot point). However, if you've got a less-than-15-year-old who knows about that, this one is more of a T beneath it (for reasons as discussed above, and also due to |someone who's obviously not a good guy giving people the finger, drug and alcohol abuse,  and underage smoking|.

Disclaimer: |There is no actual| potato soup |in this novel. I simply added it to confuse people who haven't highlighted the spoilers, and amuse people who have|.