Screwed - Eoin Colfer

Ali Mark
Jan 27, 2016
3 min read

Published in May 2013.

Pages: 302.

Number of books by author: 66 Novels (Sequel to Plugged)

Genre: Fiction.

In the sequel to Plugged, we return where Daniel left off - striking a deal with mafia man Mike Madden to stay alive. But when Daniel's part of the deal falls through, he strikes another deal with Mike in hopes of staying alive. However, Mike set up Daniel all along, and now Daniel has to fight to stay alive (again).

You may like this book if you like the following sub-genres:

Alcohol Abuse
Family life/family ties
Organized crime/mob families
Vigilante Justice
Police/FBI/Detective

Goodreads users gave this book a 3.73. I think it was more deserving of a 4.00.

When I read Plugged, I noted that I was disappointed with the extreme number of flashbacks to Daniel's war days - and the way they took over pages and pages of the story line. I worried that I would see a lot of that in this book as we watch Daniel run into some of those triggers; but I was happily surprised that the war flashbacks were far and few between.

There weren't as many characters in this book as there were in Plugged. And while that seems like an odd complaint, the first book's characters were just name-dropping other characters who would then show up at just the right time. But moving into Screwed, we knew about half the characters already - and there wasn't a new main character, so we really got to continue learning about our characters and how their relationships intertwine with another, while also learning new facts about who they are, which I think is important when we're looking at a sequel. We want growth - even if it's minute. But the new characters that were introduced were introduced with purpose. There wasn't a lot of wishy-washy introductions or departures - everyone served a specific purpose, and it felt more realistic than we saw in Plugged.

Plain and simple, I enjoyed this book more than I did Plugged. I thought Colfer's growth, as an adult fiction writer, was visible in this book. This book definitely stood alone, and it answered a lot of those lingering questions we found at the end of Plugged, which is why you read a sequel to begin with. I wanted more out of this book - more out of the story line, the characters, the author himself, and I felt it in this book. Even at the end of Screwed, I felt a relief for Daniel - and Sophia and Zeb as well. Maybe it's because I had 600+ pages with a lot of these characters, but I was able to feel a connection in Screwed that I didn't get to feel with all the characters in Plugged.

The story line left a little mystery (which I'm chalking up to subconscious messages... even though, yes, they came through a Twitter feed), but I mostly felt as if all of my questions were answered. I felt a sense of resolve at the end of the book - and a lot of that is because of how Colfer wrote the ending. There were still some questions, but I don't know that I'd like to see this series become a trilogy. It would take a special something to make a third novel in this series something amazing, but otherwise, it would be predictable and overkill.