"Hostile Takeover" Doesn't Follow "The Intern's Handbook"

*I won this book through Goodreads' First Reads Giveaway*

John Lago, the main character, states early on in the novel that this sequel is going to better than the original. 

Ehhhhh....I don't know about that one. 

It's not bad by any means, but I found myself liking the original more. First of all, it's not written in the same way. The last book was written as if Lago himself wrote it, whereas this one is not. In fact, it jumps from present day to past and back and forth. Does this get a bit confusing and abrupt sometimes? Yes. But once you get going it's not so bad. 

Second of all, there's a lot happening in this novel. While the synopsis on the back does touch on parts of the novel, it sure as hell does not do it justice. I walked in thinking the book was going to go one way and came out feeling as if I was unprepared going in.*UPDATE: the Goodreads synopsis is A LOT BETTER than the one on the back of my book. I only just now realized that the two are different 

Oh man, and Alice? She is intolerable in this book. I couldn't stand her, even when Kuhn wanted me to like her. She wasn't so bad in the first novel, but I was ready to take her out myself after this one. 

In addition to everything above, this book has its own designated prologue, but, in my opinion, the prologue should have spanned the first 100 pages of the novel. Everything happened so quickly and seemed so forced in those pages that it seemed the only purpose for these scenes were to set you up for the second half, which was much more paced and thought out. A lot of the time I found myself not thinking about the timing and the logistics because I just wanted to get through the scene. If I thought about it too much, I would find hundreds of flaws...and that's no fun, now is it?

Now, don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the book. After those first 100 pages, I was thoroughly enthralled in the drama of the novel. I also love John Lago as a character, which is probably why I could power through the eh parts, since he is such an interesting character. It's a decent sequel, overall, since you get to dive more into Lago's life, but I still liked the original a little bit better.