You ever wanted to re-experience a bunch of Warriors books from the POV of Onestar? Yeah, me neither. But we get it anyways. Spoilers ahead.
Onestar's Confession follows Onepaw/whisker/star as he grows up and older in his Clan. At first he's an apprentice and young warrior who likes to sneak into Twolegplace to hang around the kittypets, but after he fathers a kit with one of them and WindClan has to leave the old forest behind, Onewhisker reject his former mate and son, Darkkit. From there on he grows older and more solitary as he eventually becomes Clan leader and has to deal with various threats. But when Darkkit, Darktail now, once again shows up to enact revenge upon the Clans and especially Onestar, the WindClan leader will have to decide whether he'll step up and face his past mistakes or cower away from them forever.
Onestar is one of those characters whom I liked in arc one and only arc one. As soon as he became Onestar he just became yet another asshole rival Clan leader who doesn't like ThunderClan (hint: there have been a lot of those throughout the books). What set him apart back when he was Onewhisker was the fact that he had a close bond with Firestar but was nonetheless a loyal WindClan warrior. But as soon as he became Onestar he pretty much started to reject his past friendships with ThunderClan. I just disliked him from then onward and the idea that I'd have to read an entire 500-page book about him wasn't exactly appealing. But here we are. Yet again my promise to review every single Erin Hunter book biting me in the ass.
We follow Onestar from his apprentice-hood to him being a leader here, and while I thought he was at least semi-likable in the first few chapters, I also just face-palmed so many times at his actions. He kept going into Twolegplace despite knowing very well how wrong it is. If he just hadn't been an airhead as a young warrior the entire conflict with Darktail just never would've happened.
Now, to address the elephant in the room: there was some controversy just before this book came out as a few copies were released early and showed that Onestar in this book became mates with Whitetail, which caused a fandom outrage due to the uncomfortable nature of the ship. And while I totally get it and think this is valid, I also saw some people (me included due to misunderstanding) call it pedophilia which it just...isn't.
For context: Onestar (back when Onewhisker) falls in love and becomes mate with Whitetail, a cat who was formerly his apprentice. In the Warriors universe, apprentices are teenagers who are made warriors by the time they are young adults. Their mentors are essentially the cats who raise them from the time they become apprentices (young teenagers) until they graduate and become warriors. Onewhisker was Whitetail's mentor in this case. So while they are both consenting adults by the time they get together, it's still quite awkward considering the fact that Onewhisker pretty much raised her throughout all of her teenage-hood.
Biological (or sometimes adopted) families do tend to play a role in a cat's lives as well (especially in the more modern books), however their mentors are really their go-to figures when it comes to teaching them things and raising them for Clan life throughout most of their formative moons. Luckily Onewhisker and Whitetail didn't get together while she was an apprentice (there have unfortunately been a few warrior-apprentice ships throughout the series, which is even more yikes) and they were both consenting adults, but that doesn't change the fact that the relationship is just...weird and uncomfortable.
It also would've been an super-easy fix. Onestar's time mentoring Whitetail is completely skipped over, so they literally could've just made Onestar the mentor of any other cat and still have Whitetail be his mate, and nothing would've been lost. I'm not sure if this would contradict statements in previous books, but we're talking about Warrior Cats here, one of the most notorious series for when it comes to retconning things. I think they can stand to have one more retcon in their giant arsenal in order to prevent a weird relationship.
Okay, that stuff aside, there's more to talk about in this book. But it's not positive. I don't like Onestar as a character. This book most certainly didn't change my mind on him. Like I said, I found him semi-bearable in the early chapters but I quickly grew discontent with his character once again. I just don't like his character and writing a 500-page book recounting events we already know of through is POV doesn't make me like him more, if anything it makes me even more disillusioned in the character. It also doesn't help that this book skips over some major aspects of his character, such as the banishment and return of WindClan, him mentoring Whitetail, him having a budding friendship with Fireheart that grows into immense respect, him becoming Gorsepaw's mentor before the young apprentice is killed, his relationship to Heathertail and the former Dark Forest trainees such as Breezepelt and Harespring, and some parts of his deteriorating relationship with Firestar at the lake territories.
I generally think that Erin Hunter should just stop doing these Super Editions/Novellas where they recount events we already know of through a different POV character. We already know what will happen, the only thing that is different here is who is experiencing it. It was somewhat enjoyable when done briefly at first for me, or maybe as smaller parts in a larger (more unique) story, but by now I've just grown so tired of these types of books. Gives us new tales about new characters already instead of just cheaply going through the old familiar stories again with a different POV.
Another thing I didn't like about this book was the time skips. They were super jarring and felt all over the place. Sometimes we'd spend a lot of time in a certain area, then it'd skip major others just to get to the parts where some of the pivotal character moments for or surrounding Onestar were happening. The older recounting-events-through-different-POV type of books had some kind of balance to what they skipped and where, and it didn't feel jarring most of the time. Here, we're skipping all over the place and it didn't feel graceful at all. It consistently took me out of the story, which is of course the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do for a book. And, like I said before, they actually skipped some moments that are pivotal to Onestar's life and character.
Overall this is definitely one of the least impressive entries in the Super Edition series if you ask me. I really hope they get better again soon, because the last two books in this series before this one haven't made any really good impressions on me, either.
Rating: 2/5
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