Let's take a look at book two in this series. I believe that so far this is the latest book of the series which has been translated into English. However, since I'm reading the German editions (which have been translated much further ahead) that's no issue for me. Spoilers ahead.
Dilah and his friends continue the journey to follow the Moonstone in hopes of turning human. But it's a perilous journey full of tests, and soon enough Dilah realizes that in order to realize his wish, he must make a terrible sacrifice.
Overall a pretty strong second installment if I may say so. I already liked the first, but this one might've been even stronger than that one. It's an adventure full of friendship, tribulations, danger, fun, and emotions.
Dilah is still a good protagonist to follow and I like how he's a bit flawed but still definitely willing to follow his dreams. His friends are also enjoyable, and the panda character (called Ning in the German edition, name night be different in the English release) was a welcome addition to our main crew. Emily wasn't in the book for very long, but I also found her quite enjoyable.
If I did have a gripe it's that there's not a lot of female characters to be found in this book, at least not major ones. We do have Emily but she's not the best representation since she's deceitful and ends up dying a pretty bad death early on. She's a decently written character but again it'd have been nice to have more representation of various female characters.
Also: The ending. Yeah. Yeesh. That was...dark. Basically, Dilah and his friends realize that in order to become human, they first must die (it's basically reincarnation, their souls will be reborn as a human but first their animal bodies must perish). To make thing worse, an attack of the villainous Carl happens at the height of the climax, and some human hunters show up as well. This leads to pretty much every major character, both on the side of good and bad, dying. Even Dilah eventually dies and goes through the gate of reincarnation, presumably to be reborn as a human in the next book.
It's just very dark and while it's a well-written and impactful ending, it does feel very dark compared to most of the rest of the book, which can be exciting or intense but not to this degree (excluding Emily's death). There's even some pretty lighthearted and fun scenes, such as an animal beauty contest. This leads to some tonal issues.
So overall while a good book with an effective ending, the book does have some tonal issues and it'd be nice to have more and better representation of female characters. I also do wonder where the next book will go. Will Dilah be human now? Only time will tell, I guess.
Rating: 4/5
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