In this sequel to Heart of Glass, Video finds herself being wanted. Still, she is determined to rid the Media of the Jester, the magical villain who plagues the land. Spoilers below the cut.
Overall, I'd say this one is close to the first book of Mandatory. It carries much of the same good but also bad points as the former one did.
For the things I liked: I found myself much more attached to Video's character than Radio's in the last book. I don't know why exactly, but something about Video just speaks more to me. I really think this is because of personal preference, but I just for the life of me couldn't find a good connection with Radio.
The editing was definitely better in this book than the last, but I still spotted one too many errors in wording, punctuation, etc. It could've used another read-through for extra spell/punctuation checks before publishing.
Something in this book I cannot quite connect with is the world building. I keep wondering how these animals somehow have all this technology when they don't have thumbs or anything. When imagining this world I have no idea what level of futurism to imagine. Do the cities still look like more regular cities or are they high-tech and stuff? Maybe I missed the parts where this was clearly described, but I have real difficulty picturing the world of Mandatory. I've also seen other people touch on the ethics of hunting in a world where every creature (prey included) is sentient, which is just kinda iffy.
Another problem I had with the first book persists in this one: the pronouns it/its are used very often to refer to one of the characters, which is very dehumanizing when actual proper gender neutral pronouns exist that aren't as condescending and especially since the character keeps making it clear he wants to be addressed with he/him pronouns and male titles. Later in the book they finally switch to using the correct pronouns for him, but it felt really uncomfortable having to read a character be misgendered constantly.
I at first had a bit of a hard time getting into this book (as I do with some), but once the action started to pick up and we got to know more and more about the Jester, I got actually really intrigued, which definitely added to my personal enjoyment for the book. The ending was also a powerful one. The revelation regarding the Jester was one I didn't see coming at all. Also, the kittens thing? Apparently Radio has a litter of kittens with two different fathers? Just... hmm, is all I can say about that.
While I don't think it's a huge improvement over the first book, I do personally much prefer Straight to Video simply because of my personal enjoyment of it. I look forward to the next book in this series and hope Teelia Pelletier keeps writing and improving!
Rating: 3/5
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