Finally taking a gander at book four! Spoilers ahead!
The Caihong family is scattered after Ren's turned her back on them, and it had devastating consequences, especially on Sarala. It is now up to everyone to find a way to reunite, but that's not easy when Chaocat is still scheming in the background.
Overall I enjoyed this book fine, though I do have to admit that my love for this genre (fantasy with quite a bit of focus on lore and magic) is a genre I've fallen out of love with in the past six months. But even if it's not really my genre anymore, I still enjoyed this book quite a bit. The world-building is solid, and I especially like the characters, they really are what made me keep going with the story. There is some good character development here. I also really enjoyed the climax and the moment where the family finally got back together.
However, it's not without its flaws. There's stuff like a typo I spotted, a dark-skinned character's face being described as lightening when they blush (that's not what blushing on dark-skinned people looks like), and at one point something is described as being the size of a bat (which is kind of a confusing descriptor to use because bats can be tiny or huge).
There's also early on in the book a courtroom-type setting where some characters are fined for the crimes they committed, however the exact amount they have to pay is never mentioned, which just feels unrealistic, as the amount of a fine (or at least a rough estimate) will always be mentioned in a serious setting like this.
The pacing is also really slow this time around, and while it picks up later on in the book especially early on it definitely felt like it was dragging a bit and some scenes could've been condensed.
Finally, while I do like the characters overall and think they're the best element of the book, I feel that Jabali is very underutilized as a character. He's not bad or anything, he's decent enough, but he just feels like he mostly exists to support Ak-tu and the kids, rather than being his own person, at least in this book. We never get much of an image of what exactly his hopes and dreams are, what his greatest flaws are, what his personality quirks are, what his main arc is, outside of his connection with the other main characters.
Even his past relationship with Wave is barely touched on outside of early on in the book. So Jabali just ends up feeling like, at least in this book, he's not a completely realized character. Even side characters like Mint and Cypress, who don't have as much page-time, have more fully realized arcs and feel more like their own people. Jabali isn't bad, but he feels like he is missed potential. I do have to re-iterate that I haven't yet read the re-edited versions of books two and three, so perhaps Jabali is fully utilized and realized as a character there, but in this book he felt rather lacking and like he doesn't really stand on his own outside of his relationship with the other major characters.
However, like I said, there is also plenty of good to be found in this book. Particularly the character development for characters like Ren, Zyn, Mint, Sarala and Cypress. The character writing is really what makes these books shine, at least to me. The world-building is also good, though not as much to my personal taste as I described above. But I just want to reiterate that despite my gripes this is definitely a good book.
So yeah, I do overall like this book and consider it good, but it's also not without its flaws. If you read the series so far I do recommend you continue with this one.
Rating: 3.5/5
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