Book Review: Goosefeather's Curse by Erin Hunter (Warriors Novella #8)

 

Goosefeather. He’s definitely not one of those characters of Warriors I liked when I first read about him. I was thoroughly annoyed by him during my first read of Bluestar’s Prophecy, and his appearances in other books weren’t very welcome, either. But now that he has his own book, how does that hold up? We’ll see. Spoilers ahead, this is Goosefeather’s Curse by Erin Hunter.

Young Goosepaw is apprenticed at an early age when he keeps having visions and seeing the spirits of dead cats around the ThunderClan camp. His mentor Cloudberry urges him to keep his gifts a secret during his training as a medicine cat. The gift Goosepaw, later Goosefeather, has, however, soon turns out to be more like a curse when he becomes estranged from his family and Clanmates, keeps being bombarded with different visions, and of course still sees the StarClan cats.

While not the most riveting of these novellas, I honestly really enjoyed Goosefeather’s Curse. It gave a much-needed look into his character and how he saw the world. I felt so sorry for him for being born with this gift, or rather, curse. I think he was a very interesting character that was described well in this book.

While we don’t quite see him be as far gone as he is by Bluestar’s Prophecy and other books he appeared in, it still explained to us why he was this way clearly.

Other characters I honestly didn’t like much in this book. Cloudberry wasn’t too bad, but I really disliked how Moonpaw just started to see her littermate as a freak. Stormtail honestly was the worst here, too. The other characters I was mostly neutral on, but those three stood out to me the most.

I was slightly bothered by the inconsistency that now suddenly most StarClan cats seem to roam the forest, rather than Silverpelt. Usually smaller mistakes don’t bother me so much, but this one just was too major to overlook. In pretty much all other books in this series I’ve read, StarClan mostly lives in the stars and only comes down to the forest for special occasions like delivering prophecies, but in Goosefeather’s Curse they just seem to reside in the forest, being invisible to the living. Just something I noticed.

I also thought it was slightly unnecessary to bring Mapleshade into this again. She doesn’t constantly need to show up in ever Super Edition and novella. I mean, that’s an exaggeration, but she’s there way too often when she has no connection to the story. I also feel like her part honestly could’ve been cut out entirely and not much would’ve changed at all.

Another positive, though, was the pacing, which was somewhat fast, but never too fast.

I honestly think this is one of the better Warriors novellas out there! Not perfect, but if you ask me it’s far better than things like Tigerclaw’s Fury. As for my scoring system, this one definitely gets a four out of five stars from me. What are your thoughts on this novella? Is it one of your favorites as well, and did it change your perspective on Goosefeather? Let me know in the comments! 

Rating: 4/5