Sienna Nealon is still haunted by her last encounter with Wolfe. She is still searching for her mother. And now, before either wound has healed, a new and far more dangerous threat arrives: Aleksandr Gavrikov, a metahuman capable of destroying entire cities, with the Directorate in his crosshairs. Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2, written by Robert J. Crane and narrated by Annie Sullivan, runs seven hours and fifteen minutes and continues the series that one reviewer described as arriving with a little happy dance after completing book one. This audiobook makes good on that enthusiasm while raising the tactical and emotional complexity considerably.
Our Take on Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2
The second entry in a metahuman series faces a specific structural challenge: escalating the external threat while also deepening the internal dynamics that made the first book worth following. Crane manages this by introducing Gavrikov as a city-scale menace, a figure whose power is so far beyond the confrontations of book one that Sienna and the Directorate must adapt their entire operational approach, while simultaneously complicating Sienna's personal landscape with new relationships and, more interestingly, the voices she now carries in her head. Three distinct voices, accumulated through the particular nature of her metahuman ability, begin asserting themselves in ways that make her internal experience more crowded and less trustworthy.
That internal multiplicity is what elevates Untouched beyond the standard superpower-escalation model. Sienna's decision-making is unreliable not because she is naive but because the voices in her head have their own agendas and their own emotional weights, and distinguishing her own impulses from their influence is a genuine cognitive challenge she has to work through in real time. One reviewer noted that the addition of Zack, the aunt, Omega, and three voices in her head created precisely the kind of invested continuation that keeps a series reading compelling. The observation is accurate. Crane is building a character whose power is her greatest liability as much as her greatest asset.
The pacing concern one reviewer raised, that the good guys always seem to win and heal, limiting the true edge-of-seat quality, is fair but slightly misses the nature of the appeal. The Girl in the Box series is not primarily about narrative uncertainty regarding outcome. It is about watching a specific character develop under pressure, and the trajectory of that development across book two is satisfying in ways that have less to do with whether Sienna survives Gavrikov than with what she becomes in the process of facing him.
Why Listen to Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2
Annie Sullivan's narration fits the series' tone: the first-person teenage voice requires a balance between genuine teenage interiority and the sardonic self-awareness that Sienna displays as a coping mechanism. Sullivan does not sand off the character's edges to make her more likable. The snarky self-centeredness one reviewer flagged as a feature of book one is still present here, and Sullivan reads it with the combination of affection and honest exasperation that keeps it from becoming abrasive. The action sequences move well under her direction, the banter earns its rhythm, and the internal-voices dimension is handled with enough distinction to track without requiring memorization of who is speaking.
At seven and a quarter hours, this is a lean, propulsive listen. Crane writes plot-forward YA fantasy that prioritizes momentum, and the audiobook format suits that approach well. The city-scale stakes of the Gavrikov arc provide set-piece moments that give the narration genuine dramatic scope, and the quieter scenes involving Zack and the Directorate's internal politics offer breathing room without stalling the forward energy.
What to Watch For in Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2
Series entry is mandatory. The synopsis describes Sienna as still haunted by Wolfe and still searching for her mother, and both of those emotional contexts require book one. The second installment does not recapitulate the first beyond brief references, and the impact of Gavrikov as a threat depends partly on understanding how extraordinary his power level is relative to the abilities established in book one. New listeners should start from the beginning.
The three-voices-in-Sienna's-head element introduced in this volume is not fully resolved and is clearly being built into a longer arc. Listeners who prefer self-contained installments may find this open thread frustrating. Series readers will recognize it as the kind of slow-build complication that pays dividends over multiple volumes, and it is the detail that most clearly signals Crane's investment in Sienna as a character whose internal life is as interesting as her external circumstances.
Who Should Listen to Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2
This audiobook rewards listeners who completed book one and found Sienna's voice and the metahuman premise compelling enough to want more. The second installment is structurally similar to the first but more layered in its character work, and the Gavrikov threat escalates the external stakes in ways that give the series genuine scope. Annie Sullivan's narration carries the sardonic teenage register without losing the emotional undercurrent.
Those who found the first book's pacing or protagonist limitations off-putting will not find significant reasons to change their position here. The core elements, fast action, snarky first-person voice, escalating metahuman conflicts, are consistent rather than transformed. Untouched is a confident continuation that knows exactly what it is. Crane does not use the second installment to fundamentally reposition the series. He deepens what is already there, adds new complications that will carry through later volumes, and delivers on the implicit contract the first book established. That kind of disciplined continuation is rarer in fast-moving genre series than it ought to be, and it is what makes book two feel like progress rather than repetition.
