Let's take a look. Spoilers ahead! Oh, and a content warning for misogyny, abuse and SA does apply here. I don't go into detail in the review, but beware if you want to read the book yourself.
Torka and his tribe separate from Cheanah's tribe, looking for new land to live in. Just before leaving, his twins Umak and Manaravak were split up, with Torka's tribe raising the former and the latter being found and raised by wild yeti-like creatures known as Wanawut. It seems that everything is building to a battle between the two tribes. And will Manaravak ever re-unite with his human family?
Okay, so, yeah, this one was quite good. I really got invested into it, much more than I was expecting. I didn't outright dislike this series before, but it never quite reached these highs before, at least if you ask me.
Where it really succeeds this time around is the character writing, because boy are there a lot of interesting developments in this one. Torka and Lonit are still decent characters, sure, but I personally found the POVs from Manaravak and Karana to be the really standout ones. Manaravak is super interesting because he was raised as a wild animal by Wanawuts. Karana meanwhile is still a shaman, but he starts to show Navakh-like tendencies this time around as he slowly falls into an antagonist role, a development I really didn't see coming. Yet this change of his character never felt unnatural. The author really made it work. Heck, even the villain who gets a few POVs (Cheanah) is pretty interesting, even if he is a despicable human being.
The story also consistently kept me hooked, but for me it was really the characters and the well-written relationships between them that kept me invested. The world-building was also pretty neat still.
If there is one element I'm still not as fond as, it'll have to be the misogyny and frequent mistreatment of the female characters, however I will give this installment credit that it's usually the villains doing these despicable acts. This will become an issue later on (read my book four review for more on that). And also this installment wasn't quite as graphic with the descriptions as I've seen in some others in the series (and other series).
So yeah, minus the misogyny I still really enjoyed this one and I think it really excelled at coming up with interesting character developments, character relationships, and concepts. It really had me hooked, especially the last third or so.
Rating: 4/5
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