Book five! One left and we're done with this arc! While I didn't consider book four to be particularly engaging, it did leave off with a large cliffhanger! So let's see how our main three and the Clans are doing in The Place of No Stars. Spoilers ahead.
Ashfur has kidnapped Squirrelflight and trapped her, alongside a lot of other spirits that can't get to StarClan, in the Dark Forest. The Clans now must decide who will venture in after them in hopes of saving Squirrelflight, Bramblestar and the ghosts from Ashfur.
This book was a whole lot more exciting than the last, with our cats actually traveling into the Dark Forest to rescue the others, which is an interesting concept, especially when it ends up killing Willowshine. RiverClan is now without a medicine cat, so that's a pretty big deal, as is ThunderClan being without a leader and Bramblestar's ghost finally retaking his body.
And its ending is also quite strong! We finally have Squirrelflight and Bramblestar re-united, safe in the living world, only to have Rootspring be trapped in the Place of No Stars.
It also sheds a more positive or at the very least neutral light at some of the Dark Forest cats, Snowtuft in particular, who is willing to help our main character's out rather than join Ashfur in his exploits, which is quite unique as former arcs portrayed the cats of the Place of No Stars pretty much as irredeemable villains only.
Now to talk about Ashfur as a villain...I am not the biggest fan of him, but on the other hand he is a great deal more thought out than the standard Warriors villain, which is often just a stereotypical power-hungry warrior or rogue with little to no backstory to their motivations. Ashfur actually has a very developed backstory that goes all the way back to the second arc. He's still essentially just an incel, but he's an incel with power, and a lot of it, with him having seeming control over the Dark Forest and some of its current residents. I'm not the biggest fan of him as our main villain yet, but at the same time he does have a more unique backstory and motivations than most standard Warriors baddies. I guess whether you like this type of villain or the standard is up for you to decide. I feel a bit the same about him here as I did with Breeze in Survivors arc 2. Pretty cool villain with a unique backstory, but at the same time not really my cup of tea.
So yeah, this was a pretty strong book! So far there's only one book in this arc I really didn't like all that much. Let's hope the last lives up to the reputation of the other books (minus Darkness Within).
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment