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We start of with Mapleshade being happy as she could ever be in ThunderClan. She has an (admittedly secret) mate in another Clan and is expecting his kids, wanting them to be the future of ThunderClan. But after they are born and the Clan finds out that she lied to them, Mapleshade and her kits are banished from ThunderClan. What then occurs causes Mapleshade to go on a quest of revenge against every cat that ever wronged her.
I really enjoyed this novella. While not very long, it gives us plenty of details to show where Mapleshade is coming from. Is she justified in anything she did? No, she was clearly not in a good state of mind and kind of delusional in how she just expected everyone to accept her kits. She also claims she didn't exactly lie about who the kits' father was, but she really was, just not vocally. A lie is a lie either way. Her incredible optimism and lying caused the downfall of her and her kits.
The death of the kits was obviously heartbreaking, and I do truly believe that Frecklewish should've stepped in, but to have her killed for it was not the answer, either. Mapleshade clearly thinks that everyone and everything is against her once she loses her kits, StarClan included. It's also interesting to see how she gets delusions of her kits "encouraging" her immoral actions as she goes on her revenge spree, seeking to kill everyone that in her eyes has wronged her.
The pacing was a bit off, with it feeling a bit rushed. It did do fine, but I feel like some things went a little bit too fast. Everyone just turns on Mapleshade really quickly and I'm not sure if I'm willing to believe a Clan would just sentence three young kits, even if halfClan, just to banishment like that. Maybe they'd organize a meeting with RiverClan or something, but I think that the handling of Oakstar and Darkstar of this subject were very harsh and not fully thought out. Either that or they're just terrible leaders with no sympathy for kits.
I guess I'm also kind of annoyed by the inconsistent description of Mapleshade across the books. It seems to be about evenly spread, with a lot of times her being called tortie-and-white, but in other occasions (such as here) her being described as ginger-and-white. I personally don't mind either description, but they really need to pick one and stick to it. It's just wildly inconsistent and changes so often that it's really hard to pinpoint which one exactly is the right one. At least Dovewing's eye color stayed consistently green after being changed the second time to my remembrance, whereas I've yet to see a consistent description of Mapleshade.
So, yeah, not perfect, but a really interesting look into this character nonetheless!
Rating: 4/5
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