I gotta be blatantly honest: I have no idea if the Ga'Hoole book series is sub-divided into arcs. I think there's around 13-16 books total but I'm really unsure on how they're divided up, if at all. However, I'm also not going to look it up on the gfan wiki out of fear of running into spoilers. So I'll just be reading them in order and go from there. I've also heard there's several spinoff books (not counting other series set in the same universe such as Wolves of the Beyond and Bears of the Ice), so I'll probably be checking those out after finishing all main-arc Ga'Hoole books.
Anyways, here's The Shattering. Spoilers ahead.
Some time after the fight with the Pure Ones, Eglantine is feeling down because of all the times she's been left out of the Chaw of Chaws' adventures in the past books. She ends up getting visions and befriending an ex-Pure One named Ginger, however both seem to be leading her into trouble. The Pure Ones, meanwhile, are still plotting, and it seems they're somehow involved in Eglantine's changing behavior. Will Soren be able to get his sister back before it's too late?
Yeah, another solid installment for sure! I really liked this one, it also felt a bit different from the others. There's really a focus on the characters here and less on the action/battle/villains. Don't get me wrong, the Pure Ones still play a big role in this story, but they feel like they're a bit more in the background here than before. Of course, later on in the book it turns out that they've been behind some of the things going on in the story the entire time, but our characters did not know that.
Eglantine really steals the show in this book, something I was quite surprised by. The other books never had any issue POV-hopping from character to character, but Soren was still very much the main character whose journey we followed. In this book, for the first time Eglantine truly gets the spotlight. Soren gets his usual dose of POV-chapters as well, but it was really neat to get a different POV for a large chunk of the book this time, and especially neat that Eglantine got to develop as a character.
In the past two-three books she has been sidelined by the Chaw of Chaws several times when she wanted to help them, and I'm very glad to see that Lasky didn't just forget about that plot point. It's actually what kicks the plot of this book into gear, where Eglantine wants to keep her visions and her "mother" (we'll get to that later) to herself. Soon thereafter her behavior starts changing, and it turns out that she's being "shattered" (her mind muddled and her being unable to tell right from wrong). It's now up to both her and Soren to find a way to get her back to being the old Eglantine. Her development was handled very well in this book and she's now actually one of my favorite characters. I totally understood why she was acting the way she was (even if she wasn't in the right a lot of the time), and it was also great to see her snap back into reality before her being shattered became permanent.
Another really good yet brief moment I just have to mention is Ezylryb deciding to pretty much adopt Soren as his son and heir near the end. It's just a super wholesome moment and you really feel the connection these two have. Ezylryb isn't even very emotional about it, he's just like "you have no parents, I need a ward and a successor" and it works really well.
The only thing I kind of wish was included here was him deciding to adopt Eglantine as well. She's Soren's sister, after all, and now after an entire subplot about her feeling left out leading to bad things she's again being left out of being adopted by this owl. I know that she doesn't quite have the same bond with Ezylryb that Soren has and maybe he can only have one true heir to carry on his title as a legendary warrior, but it's still a bit harsh to pretty much adopt one of the siblings and not the other especially after the other just went through a really rough time because she was being left out all the time.
Another thing in this book I didn't find so praiseworthy...the twists. The other Ga'Hoole books so far have been fairly good at building up their twists and turns. But this book is just...so bad at hiding them. I never once in this book wasn't able to predict one of the twists they were trying to hide. Ginger still being in cahoots with the Pure Ones was just super obvious from the moment she was introduced in this book. "Marella", Eglantine's supposed-mother, actually being Kludd's mate Nyra impersonating her was super obvious from the start as well. Eglantine's changing behavior being what "shattering" entails as also just clear from the start.
I'd just have liked if Lasky had tried just a little harder to hide the twists and turns of this book and to not make them as glaringly obvious as they were here. I don't need them to come out of total left field with no buildup whatsoever (that would also not be very good writing), but some more subtle hints would've been nice. Right now the reader just becomes frustrated with the characters not catching on onto the super blatantly obvious twists the author is barely even trying to hide.
The rest of the book is still very good, though, and I am very excited for the next one as we'll be traveling to the Northern Kingdoms for the first time! Let's see what that entails next time.
Rating: 4/5
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