New book review! Let's dive right in. Spoilers ahead.
After the defeat of Dusk, the three panda siblings are growing into their roles as Dragon Speakers. However, trouble is arising with Brawnshanks' monkeys being up to no good, and a dark omen appears. Leaf now faces the fact that everyone thinks her to be the most competent Dragon Speaker. Ghost is still tormented by the antagonistic snow leopard siblings and the other animals are losing faith in him. And Rain breaks away from Ghost after a terrible event. Will the three siblings be able to re-unite before something terrible happens to the Great Dragon?
For as interesting as this plot sounds, especially with their literal god being at stake, this book was surprisingly underwhelming. Basically, not a lot happens in it, at all. Which is quite a shame after how exciting and intense the first three books could be.
This book doesn't really get going until the last third or so, when Rain disowns Ghost as her brother and Dragon Speaker, due to him being blamed for a murder he didn't commit. And then of course there's Brawnshanks who in the climax manages to set up a ritual which ends up splitting the Great Dragon into three separate dragons. What this will mean for the future of the series we can only guess for now.
So while this is a very intense final event to end the book out on, the rest of the book is just...kind of there. It doesn't feel all that connected. Granted, there are a few POV chapters written from one of monkeys called Nimbletail. Her plot for the most part does directly tie into the climax, because it shows what Brawnshanks is up to and is proper buildup for this event.
But the chapters of the Dragon Speakers for the most part feel rather disconnected, it's mostly just interpersonal drama with very few connections to the main plot. Leaf is visited by some of that special pangolin sect, and Ghost is being tormented by Brisk and Sleet who are in turn working for Brawnshanks, but it's so few and far between. Also, am I the only one to notice Rain barely got any chapters this time around? Which is A) a huge shame because she's my favorite character, and B) just feels weirdly imbalanced when more time is dedicated to Ghost, Leaf and heck even the POV-newcomer Nimbletail. Rain also barely does anything this book. She just hangs out near the water all the time and then disowns Ghost when Pebble is killed. The epilogue does imply she might have more to do next book, but I was vastly disappointed with how little she does this time around, being mostly talked about in passing.
There are some good things this book, such as how Ghost's sibling bond with Shiver is really unbreakable now and the climax is admittedly pretty intense. I also liked Nimbletail, despite her being a more recent addition to the main cast. She's clearly a very moral monkey who is willing to take increasingly big risks just to do the right thing. Also, the introduction of another tiger character, Shadowhunter's cousin was nice. I can only hope she'll become a major player in future books.
But that's just kind of it. This book is just not a lot happening aside from the climax and some interpersonal drama, and Nimbletail's chapters. A book which mostly focuses on character interaction can work, but it wasn't executed here properly. The repetitive interactions felt tedious to read and it felt wildly inconsistent to have most chapters just be interpersonal drama, only for a giant as fuck prior lore-shattering climax to take place.
The villains and antagonists are also rather one-dimensional. I guess for characters like Pebble and Ginseng and Blossom they do have some nuance to them, but then there's Sleet and Brisk, most monkeys, the more major villains of Brawnshanks and Crookedclaw; they're all rather one-note and just boring. Dusk was also a villain and not the most uniquely-written out there, but he was interesting. He was a major manipulator and memorable as heck, compare that to Brawnshanks who is just boring over the top evil. I'll give him credit for his motivation of wanting to destroy a god is pretty hardcore, but as a character he's just very uninteresting.
So unfortunately I think I've got to say this is the first Bamboo Kingdom book I genuinely didn't like a lot. Books one through three were all increasingly good, but this second half of the arc is off to a weak start. I'm not saying it can't become good; of course the next two books can be amazing for all I know. But after a pretty high high from the last book, this is so far a rather lackluster installment.
Rating: 3/5
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