The panda triplets return in book two. Let's see how things are going for them. Spoilers ahead.
Sunset's influence over the pandas, including Ghost, is spreading. Rain is still determined to somehow get her revenge for the Dragon Speaker trying to kill her, while Leaf is desperately trying to master her powers and find the Great Dragon's lair.
I think I like this one slightly better than book one. It's still not amazing and needs some work, but it's definitely a step up. For one, I liked the character development in this. I feel a lot for Ghost, personally. He has been seen as an outcast his whole life for being a panda adopted by snow leopards, but even now that he's among his own kind he's still seen as a freak because of his fur color, connection to Shiver and the fact that he likes meat (though he eventually grows fond of bamboo, too). And things are made only worse with Sunset making use of Ghost's feelings in order to manipulate him to do his dirty work for him, even separating Ghost and Shiver eventually.
Rain is still my favorite of the main three. I just love how determined, strong-willed and kind of hot-headed she is. But even she realizes her own flaws in this book a bit. I love her a whole lot and the fact that she (despite being pretty much agnostic) is chosen as one of the Dragon Speakers is kind of funny because she herself doesn't really seem to believe in the Dragon. Leaf is still my least favorite of the three simply because she feels like the most "standard" type of Erin Hunter protagonists. She's nice, has friends, always does what's she think it's right and of course is very adept at her connection to the mystical side of things (in this case the Great Dragon). I do like her, don't get me wrong. It's fun to see her figure out her visions and ties to the Great Dragon this book. But she's still kind of bland as far as protagonists go. She's likable, just could use more character development and flaws.
Sunset is still pretty basic for a villain, but I do like the fact that he's a manipulative villain rather than your bombastic "I kill everything in my way" type of guy. He will kill and bully, but he's very secretive about it and when he can manipulate someone using words he absolutely will do that instead. He also (somewhat) has an entire giant troop of monkeys under his paw, so that's a force to be reckoned with, as well.
A last character I want to discuss is Pepper: the supposed third triplet. This kind of confused me, as I thought Ghost was supposed to be the last one. And maybe he still is? I honestly think Pepper is just here to throw off the reader, but for now we don't really have explicit proof who the third is either way. Pepper might have a white pad, but it could also be Ghost since he's all-white (probably pads included).
The conflict in this book was more interesting than the first, with some of our main characters going looking for the Dragon while Ghost's POV shows what's going on at the villain's homefront. So there's definitely a bit more plot going on than in the last book.
I do still think that the world building feels very lacking here, especially with me currently reading Bravelands arc 2, where each species has their own unique society, naming system, beliefs, etc. Here everything still just feels very uniform since most species believe in the Great Dragon/Dragon Speaker and their societies are all very same-y. Even their naming conventions are largely the same (just being nouns or words) with the only exception being the red pandas, who seem to be named after skills (e.g. Dasher). And there's one tiger whose name is Shadowhunter but since there's no other tigers so far we really can't speak about their way of life/beliefs/naming system.
Definitely a step up from book one and has some great characters, but it could use some work in the world building department. I do look forward to book three, however!
Rating: 3.5/5
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