^Yes.
Actually, I know a lot of kids who stopped reading after the David trilogy, so no. Personally, the David trilogy is all about the payoff to me - #22 is one of my favorite books in the series and easily the most solid Rachel book. Totally a crossing-the-Rubicon for the team. But #21 is really just a bunch of extended set-up with a really lame b-plot thrown in, and #20 is just...I don't know. I totally don't understand where Marco's cavalcade of failure comes from in that book. I mean, it's entertaining, but it just seems so out-of-place and somewhat out-of-character. Did he hit his head that morning or something?
And I know this is a contentious statement, but David's not a very interesting character to me. He's kind of just a little jerk with some sociopathy thrown in. You could make plenty of arguments for him being angry, or refusing to fight, or being amoral and self-interested, but he moved away from could-be sympathetic character and just turned into a total twerp when he "killed" Tobias. That was the point where it was like "I don't care about your missing parents and your life getting changed overnight, that's just sociopathic". If they hadn't disposed of him in such a horrifying way, he would have just been a villain of the week and a nice break from V3. Like I said, all about the payoff.
