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Rating: 
Summary: Good, yet has faults
Review: Although this book and its accompanying workbook are not as strong as the first year level, I still appreciate this textbook. One of the best aspects of this book is the combination of speaking Chinese and written Chinese, which I have discovered at Tsinghua to be so very, very different. I might be able to understand everything that was said in class, but at an accompanying page in the textbook, it may take some time to uncover the same thing. IC2 is solid preparation for what should be third year level when you should be focusing on reading.
I do not necessarily think this book should be a year long course (as I am on the quarter system at University of Washington, I think two quarters would be adequate). With the foundation that the level 1 books provide, I think the number of vocab words is appropriate to the level, in fact may be too few. The words have been useful here; the later sections allow for conversations (albeit somewhat shallow) into political topics and societal issues. And believe me, these are things that many Chinese want to talk about with foreigners, particularly ones from the States. Explanations although at times unclear, are generally solid. One critic pointed to flaws for things that should not even be in IC2 since they appear in level 1.
People have pointed to the problems of the workbook texts and the traditional/simplified issue. These books are designed push your Chinese and require instructor supplementing, but using a dictionary to look up the new words should not take long (dictionary skills are VERY important when you start reading real texts). I am firm believer that a person's foundation (at least a couple hundred characters) should be in traditional and later switch over to simplified even if they have no intention of going to Taiwan or Hong Kong. Traditional characters are still widely used on the mainland in signs, menus, and in hand-writing. There are also many cultural relics (like stelas) that used traditional characters. If the culture has appeal, then traditional characters are an absolute necessity. Moreover, things like karaoke (KTV) make traditional characters a must. There is a very ordered system for turning traditional to simplified and it takes only days to figure out completely, but it is impossible to go the other way around.
Although the book has some shortcomings and in some cases the explanations are a little tough, the benefits outweigh the defects. It introduces cultural idioms and issues with which all Chinese can identify with. As for the typos and mistakes, the second edition is coming to press soon and these errors will be redressed. But with a proper instructor, these errors are not a significant detriment to IC2.
Rating: 
Summary: No!
Review: I wrote a fairly good review of the first level of this book. But this one is driving me crazy. It really seems like they rushed it to the shelves. EVERY CHAPTER, usually multiple times, they use words which they've simply never introduced. Good luck figuring out the meaning. Because guess what? Sometimes they're not even introduced during the whole course of the book! I'm doing the chapter 6 homework right now, and every single sentence uses words I've never seen before. And no, I didn't just learn them and forget them, I promise you they are nowhere to be found. On some occasions they actually ARE in the book, only 10 chapters ahead. The grammar explanations are practically nonexistent. As an example, let me explain the grammar "...de hua" according to page 106 of this book. "de hua is a particle. It is used in a hypothetical clause. It must be followed by another clause" Hah! Is this supposed to be a grammar explanation? Give me a break. Here's another one, "sui zhe" from Chapter 15. "sui zhe is used in the first clause to indicate a changed circumstance. The second clause introduces a concomittant change." Good luck figuring out what that means, because that's all the explanation you get. Whatever a concomittant clause is, at least we know the second clause introduces one, eh? (Okay, fine, maybe it means a NONcomittant clause, but I don't even know what _that_ is). So with that out of the way, let's talk about the structure. It's awful. Here's what a chapter consists of: 1) A monstrous dialogue
2) A list of about 50-60 vocabulary words
3) 2-3 pages of grammar (non)explanations
4) 3-4 pages of drill patterns that simply says "here's a word. put it in the blanks in the following sentence." Boy that sure requires some thought.
5) The end So, it's pretty obvious what this book focuses on. Our school goes through one chapter a week, which is absolutely absurd in my opinion. How is one expected to retain 50-60 new words a week. Even in a PHONETIC language this is hard, but now we have to learn how to WRITE them too? But it's not the school's fault. Because what else is there to do in a chapter? A chapter consists of one dialog. I mean seriously, this is just stupid.
Rating:
Summary: A solid continuation of Integrated Chinese I
Review: This textbook serves as a solid continuation of its first-year Chinese counterpart, with a useful mix of review and new materials for the vast majority of students who will begin second year Chinese after a long summer hiatus. It does not baby you throuh every single grammar point and vocabulary item, but this is the preferred method since if one is to succeed in advanced Chinese he or she must be able to absorb a mix of familiar and unfamiliar characters and grammar points. This is an important skill which will be mandatory for anyone who pursues Chinese to an advanced level, as even those foreigners who think they are "fluent" in Chinese will consistently encounter characters and grammar points they do not know and must make educated guesses based on their knowledge of grammar and past vocabulary. As always, however, no textbook is a substitute for a poor teacher, and those students unfortunate enough to both be unmotivated and have a bad teacher will likely find this textbook frustrating due to the fact that is a model representation of what further studies in Chinese will inevitably encompass - that is, neverending frustration overcome only by long nights with a dictionary. Integrated Chinese II includes both traditional characters and simplified, and introduces extremely useful vocabulary and grammar which will be essential for any intelligent speaker of Chinese to know. After over a year in Taiwan and China, and being more or less fluent, I still find my personal Chinese vocabulary largely made up of the vocabulary and grammar points first encountered in this textbook and learned back when I was in my second year Chinese class. Simply put, for the motivated, serious student of Chinese who aspires to eventually fluency, there is no better textbook available. Those who feel otherwise are misplacing the inherent frustration of learning 3,000 Chinese characters mistakenly onto this textbook rather than on the nature of the Chinese language itself (and possibly their subpar teachers).
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