Remember when Erin Hunter wrote trilogy arcs instead of six-book arcs? Yeah, me neither. This is literally a first. My guess (and that of a bunch of others as well) is that the Bravelands books weren't selling well enough, so they cut the second arc short and made it a trilogy instead.
I do fear what this means for future non-Warriors Erin Hunter series, however. I feel like I am one of the few who always likes checking out their other stuff aside from the cat series. I like Warriors fine, don't get me wrong, but I have always appreciated Hunter branching out to other animals and series rather than just keeping up the Warriors grindset and nothing else.
Ah well, like it or not, this is the final installment of at the very least arc two of Bravelands, possibly the entire series. Spoilers ahead.
The war for the Bravelands against the giant snake called Grandmother is about to begin. Great Father Thorn is dead, and the inexperienced gazelle Prance is chosen as his successor. Bramble himself desperately wants to contribute to the war as well. Chase, now trying to fight off Grandmother's mind-control, is chosen to accompany the giant serpent through the tunnels and later sent to assassinate the new Great Mother, Prance.
I really feared this book was going to be rushed because it may be an sooner-than-originally planned conclusion (we don't have any confirmation on this yet), but I was pleasantly surprised. The conflict is build up nicely and I'm also glad that the book isn't just battle after battle. The animals are more so trying to find ways to reason with Grandmother, and later to defeat her using wits before she sheds a final time and becomes invulnerable.
You guys know how I felt about the characters in Bravelands so far, but I will say that this book at least really made me care about Prance. Her situation was the most interesting out of the three protagonists in the past two books, but I didn't find there to be much to her personality-wise. Not here, though.
Prance is chosen as the next Great Mother and instead of moping about it and denying it for an entire book like Thorn did, Prance knows that time is of the essences and she just owns it. It only takes her a chapter or two to accept the fact that she's the new Great Parent and I'm super happy about that, both because Thorn's denial was always rather annoying and it's also great character development for Prance. She spent a lot of her life running away form things, and now that she's the new leader of the Bravelands she just instantly gets to work, not feeling sorry for herself for one moment. She tries to find ways to reason with Grandmother. That doesn't work, so she starts to gather her friends to plot a plan to defeat her. She uses her astral projecting abilities to confront Grandmother multiple times even at the danger of her own life. She's at one point almost killed by Chase, yet still forgives her. This book is really good for Prance as a character. It's her stepping up and just gives her some great development and moments.
And then, of course, the book has to end with her dying. Prance became the new Great Parent, got lead the Bravelands during a war for a few days and after that she's killed in the conflict while taking down Grandmother. They do win; Grandmother dies, but poor Prance. She didn't have it very good after being kicked out of her herd and now she lost her life. She does manage to briefly project her spirit into the living world from the afterlife, but still. I feel bad for the girl. Imagine being super inexperienced and randomly having to take charge in a world's fate-deciding war just because you're randomly appointed God.
We also don't get to see who the next Great Parent becomes after Prance, but honestly I'm kind of okay with that. It leaves things nice and open. Should they ever do a third arc, they'd obviously have to address it, but for now we don't know and that's okay. The ending is left slightly open but also positive enough.
As for Bramble and Chase, they're fine, but I honestly didn't find them all that engaging still. Especially Bramble. Chase does become more interesting in this book because she's bitten by one of the snake cult's members, meaning she has to fight off the venom or she'll be under Grandmother's total control. And not only that, she's also chosen to accompany Grandmother for a large portion of the book, even killing in her name and later trying to kill Prance.
But meanwhile Bramble is just...I don't know, I don't feel like he played that big a part in this overall conflict in the end. Aside from him briefly being mistaken for the next Great Parent early on, and him having his family mind-controlled by Grandmother, he really doesn't have that much to do in the overall conflict. He just kind of feels like an every-man in the Bravelands. He does have his more minor arc of maturing and becoming the next Silverback of his troop, but it just pales in levels of how engaging it is compared to the character trying to prove she's under the main villain's control, and the character who just randomly became God and now has to lead a war against this giant nearly-invulnerable villain with no prior experience.
Some minor nitpicks I also noticed: First, the titles of Grandmother and Great Mother (Prance in this case) feel a bit too similar to me. They're both the most major players in the story, the ancient main leader of the mind-controlled villains and the god-incarnate leader of the good guys chosen to save the Bravelands. But since their titles feel so similar, it was a bit distracting. Maybe this was intentional, trying to show how Grandmother could be what would happen if a Great Parent was corrupt or evil, but for me personally it didn't work that much.
Also, there's a part in the story where Prance calls Chase by her name despite the leopard not having introduced herself yet. In fact, Chase's is actually introduced to Prance by name mere paragraphs later. Just an oversight but still distracting.
But those are minor nitpicks. Despite the arc being (likely) cut short, I think this is a satisfying final book, possibly a finale to the overall series. If they do write more Bravelands books I'll read them, of course. But nothing has been announced so far. I'm just happy about this book really giving Prance the character development and spotlight she deserved.
Rating: 4/5
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