I've looked at book one before, so let's have a look at book two. Spoilers ahead.
Note: I read the Dutch edition of this book and thus only read the Dutch translated names of these characters. I cannot confirm the official English names of all of them, so some of the names in this review might be off from the official English version. I've tried my best to translate the Dutch names back into English and looked at some reviews to hopefully confirm them, but it might not be 100% accurate.
While two dangerous tribe leaders are on the rise, one called Heavy Beaver and one called Blood Bear, a boy named Little Dancer finds his shamanic powers awakening. Together with his friends and family he'll have to flee Heavy Beaver, grow up, and eventually rise to power and save an artifact known as the Wolf Pouch before it loses all its power.
This book overall had me pretty hooked and I liked seeing the story develop. The characters are usually not the most amazingly well-rounded (the villains being kind of cartoonishly evil at times), but they're still rounded enough to keep them interesting. I particularly enjoyed White Calf, a strong-willed old woman, and Two Smokes, a transgender/intersex/genderqueer in some other way individual (which one exactly they are is never completely specified) who is highly supportive of Little Dancer. Little Dancer/Fire Dancer himself was also an enjoyable protagonist and you do really feel sorry for him seeing how he has to let go of everything he holds dear to save the day in the end.
One character I couldn't get into as much as Little Dancer's love interest (whose name I sadly forgot), she wasn't at all memorable and she does have a few POV chapters, but ultimately she doesn't contribute much to the overall story other than falling in love with Fire Dancer and having his children. I'd have liked her to have either more agency and actually contribute to the plot more, or have her just as a side character. Because as a POV character she's just kind of there, not doing much other than pining over Fire Dancer.
There is also another character who is called Tanager in the Dutch edition, and her whole deal is that she goes from being a rebellious girl to a powerful warrior and leader of her people. And that's great development, I love seeing strong and capable female characters with agency in these types of stories. But where I do have an issue is that Tanager's rise to power doesn't feel entirely earned. She pretty much becomes a powerful warrior overnight and there is just not much buildup to her becoming a skilled fighter and leader. She just suddenly is one day. And I know, part of her rise to power is caused by magic due to White Calf's blessing enhancing her skills or something like that, but there still should've been a bit more growth, at least if you ask me. Because right now it feels like Tanager is only powerful because of White Calf giving her her strength, rather than her being a powerful character in her own right. I don't know, I don't hate how they handled this character, but it could've been done better.
I was also pretty sad to see that the wolf they introduced is kind of pointless and only exists to die in the story to make a new Wolf Pouch with after the old one is too damaged. They didn't even name the wolf. I don't know, as a certified wolf lover it's always disappointing when stories introduce a wolf animal companion, only to barely use them and/or have them get killed. Both of which are the case here.
So yeah, not a perfect book by any means, but I liked it more than the last installment, even if not by much. There are still some elements of misogyny here, but they're thankfully seen as a bad thing by the characters and not as normalized as they were in book one, where stuff like sexual assault and misogyny were treated as minor inconveniences rather than the traumatic events they should be treated as.
Rating: 3.5/5
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