Let's go back to Wings of Fire reviews by looking at the
second book in the Lost Continent arc. Spoilers ahead, this is The Hive Queen.
Cricket has always wondered why she was different from other HiveWings, not being able to be mind-controlled by Wasp. In this book, she goes to look for answers, revealing secrets of her own family and the HiveWing Queen.
Out of the Lost Continent books I've read so far (book 11-14), this'll have to be my least favorite of them. Don't get me wrong, I still absolutely enjoyed it, but it just didn't feel as great as the others.
I feel like one of the main things holding it back for me is Cricket. I like her character, don't get me wrong, but I simply don't care for her as much as I do the others. I thoroughly enjoyed the POVs of Blue, Sundew and Snowfall, but Cricket just felt kind of okay. I do relate to Cricket, as she shares some similarities to me, but she just wasn't the most interesting character to read the POV of. I like how she's constantly asking questions about the world around her, but a lot of her character is also hold back by her constantly fawning over Blue.
Speak of which, yeah... the whole romance aspect. So ever since they met in the last book, Blue and Cricket seem to just have fallen instantly in love with one another. I'm not saying Tui was exemplary at romance Before, but at least in the first and second arc it felt very toned down, sans maybe the Glorybringer ship (which I've already given my thoughts on in earlier reviews). But here, in their POV books, Blue and Cricket constantly keep mentally narrating how much they have a crush on the other and how perfect and cute they are and it's honestly just really, really annoying. Their crush developed way too quickly to be believable and it's pushed to the front way too much for it to feel natural. I know I criticized the Moon and Qibili relationship at the end of the second arc, but they at least interacted a decent amount of time with one another before they finally fell in love and became a thing. Blue and Cricket seemed to have gained crushes on one another the instant they first met and, with how much the writing pushes their crushes to the forefront, it's honestly becoming a bit annoying.
There were also some things that made me uncomfortable in this book. First of all, SilkWing-HiveWing relationships. They basically come down to slave-master relationships because all SilkWings are submissive to the HiveWings. So yeah, that's a nono. I'm also not a fan of how averse this book seems to be towards the LeafWings taking revenge on the HiveWings. It makes sense since it's from Cricket's POV, but, dude, consider the LeafWings' POV for a moment? They were hunted to near extinction for crying out loud. I'm not saying the LeafWings should in turn commit genocide against the HiveWings, but I definitely don't blame them for wanting to bring down the HiveWing rule. Remember, a lot of HiveWings, even if they don't 100% support Wasp, still willingly do nothing against the fact that their race is literally keeping slaves and have (to their knowledge) wiped out an entire other race. To imply that they don't need to answer for their crimes just doesn't feel right.
I did like the reveal of how Queen Wasp mind-controls HiveWings, by doing something to the eggs that allows her to control them after hatching. Due to circumstances, Cricket's egg never went through this treatment, hence why Cricket's mind can't be taken over. Then Cricket proceeds to just steal a baby, which I thought was somewhat funny. So far I fail to see the actual purpose of Bumblebee as a character (even after reading The Dangerous Gift), but I feel like, if we do get an arc 4, she might be a future protagonist?
Rating: 4/5
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