Book Review: Wolves' Fire by Inge Pietjouw (Dreamwalker #2)

 

 Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Droomwandlaar #2: Wolvenvuur.

The final book in the duology! Spoilers ahead!

Finna's journey may be over, but her sister Thora's is only just about to begin. After rescuing a white wolf pup from a snare, Thora starts to develop a special connection to the animal, being able to talk to her in her mind. Her dreams also take strange turns. To add more complications, she falls in love with a boy from the Reindeer People, a group her own people aren't too fond of, and a new enemy known as Iss shows up alongside the evil half-troll Ymir from last book in order to take over.

I really like both of these books, but I think I may like this one just a tad more than the first installment. Though I personally liked Finna's character more, Thora is also not a bad protagonist to follow and I do really root for her. The book takes place about a year after the events of the first, and Thora (and by extension her father) is still really trying to recover from everything what happened then. Being held captive by a villainous half-troll for a long time took its toll on the both of them but especially her father. And to make things worse, once he finally recovers, her father of course has to die at the hands of Iss and Ymir. Poor Thora (and Finna). 

I also liked the journey in this book, with Thora and the gang traveling to different realms. Thora also learns how to master her own abilities. While they're not the same as Finna's, Thora does have her own Dreamwalker skills as she can talk to certain animals in her head and later develops the ability to shift into a wolf herself, first only in her dreams and later in real life as well. That's pretty cool and I like that rather than her powers being a clone of those of Finna, instead she has her own unique skills. 

Her bond to her adopted wolf pup, Livvy, was also pretty genuine. I also liked Livvy better than Loki (the other wolf character) from the first book. Loki's personality kind of took a major shift once he started talking to Finna in the first book, but Livvy kind of had the same personality from the moment we met her and it stayed consistent. She's confident, friendly, a bit rash sometimes but I liked her as a character a lot. In this book we also meet another one of Odin's ravens, Hu, but he's not a very major character and just kind of serves the same role that Mu did in the first book. Kind of an animal guide sort of thing.

I also liked the villains. Ymir the half-troll (the main villain from book one) is back and stronger than ever, and he now wants to destroy both Finna and Thora as revenge. However, the more interesting main villain this time around is Iss, a woman with ice powers and elf ancestry. Not only that, but she also turns out to be the mother of both Finna and Thora, which is  at least a part of the reason for their Dreamwalker powers. That's pretty interesting to explore, though of course the sisters never even think for a second about joining Iss in her conquest despite their blood relations. I thought Iss was a well-written and intimidating villain for this story.

Now for some brief things I wasn't fond of in this book: both of them revolve around the character of Silv. Like Jor in the last book for Finna, Silv is Thora's love interest (from the Reindeer People, this time around). He's kind of a major asshole throughout most of the book, much like Jor in book one. I don't know what it is with this series and having the love interests act like this, but it's pretty tiring. Can't they just have a really wholesome relationship? I mean, ultimately Silv doesn't end up with Thora and she goes with another boy, Haldor, who treats her much more nicely, but still. Silv is the romantic focus throughout the majority of the book and he just acts like a possessive dick all the time. 

As for the other aspect regarding Silv: he is the indigenous only character of color among the main cast, and he is basically the biggest asshole out of the bunch. I'm pretty sure that the Reindeer People in this book are based on the Sámi, and indigenous people in Norway. So like, when you have an entire cast that is (heavily implied) to be uniformly white and the only major indigenous characters is one of the biggest assholes in the book. Yeah, I don't think that's exactly great representation. It's good to include more diversity in your cast but maybe don't have all the minorities act like dicks. 

Even aside from Silv, the more minor Reindeer People characters just kinda seem to hate Thora's guts. I think there was a total of one characters among them who treated Thora with respect, and she passed away pretty early on. And like, Silv acts okay sometimes, but then there's most of the time throughout the journey where he becomes less of a genuine guy and more of a giant prick. He's definitely not the worst character out of the bunch, but he is the worst major character that isn't an outright villain by far. I just wish a little bit more thought and care would've been put into the representation of the minority group here, even if a fictionalized version of them. 

Overall this was a good book though, I loved Thora, her relationship to Finna and her father, the powers she develops and the journey they make. I was just really not fond of Silv as a character and the love triangle stuff regarding him, Thora and Haldor. Not the worst but...it's not very good especially when the last book already dealt with similar moments regarding Jor.

Rating: 4/5