We're nearing the end of the penultimate Seekers arc. Spoilers ahead.
The bears end up at Toklo's old home, however it is not how it was when Toklo last saw it. A pack of wolves is running rampant, attacking bears and eating the local prey. Also, a particularly aggressive bear nicknamed Old Grizzly is being far from cooperative. The four bears will now have to work together with the local ursine inhabitants to drive out the wolves. And Toklo faces a difficult decision: Is this place truly even his home anymore?
I'll start by saying what I've said in my previous review of this arc: It's getting incredibly boring and formulaic by now. Same conflicts recycled over and over with very little new added. Once again we here have our bears struggling with other animals attacking them, territory issues, some of our main four wanting to separate from the unit, etc. It's so tiresome by now. Honestly I think this arc might not even need to exist with how little new content they added so far.
I will give this book this, however, it did introduce us to two newer things. One, the conflict with the wolves. We've had conflicts with other (predator) species before, but never this big, so that's kind-of new and I like that the bears had to work together and be clever to defeat this foe, not using strength but wit instead. Also, Old Grizzly (Chogan) being Toklo's father was rather interesting and something new, but it still isn't completely resolved by the end (Toklo will still have to return here eventually even after beating Chogan in this book). So it's a start of an interesting subplot, but not completely finished yet. And since this book already has so little else going on (aside from the wolves) it's not a whole lot.
That said, I do genuinely like some of the side-characters that were introduced here. There's Aiyanna, a friendly she-bear, and several others such as Maniitok and Makya. So the side-characters were a bit of a joy this time around, with there actually being quite a lot and most of them being likable, interesting or both. Chogan, despite being a huge ass, is still an interesting character as well like I said in the previous paragraph. I just wonder if we'll get some closure to his plot with Toklo in future books. Like yes, I know Toklo defeated him here, but Toklo will be back and he probably will have to fight Chogan again. I really want to know how that ends and all.
Overall this is a decent book in the series. I'm overall just becoming fatigued by how repetitive most of it is. I will finish this second arc, but I'm not sad there's no more Seekers books (not counting the graphic novels) after that.
Rating: 3.25/5
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