Book four time. Spoilers ahead! Also content warning for mentions of misogyny, abuse and sexual assault for this book and review.
Torka's tribe is struggling to survive as they move further east. Interpersonal relationships are changing, and it seems that the tribe is doomed to fall apart eventually. Will they stick together and survive?
Okay, so, I so far liked this series decently. Book three I even really praised for being quite good. Now book four is...eh. I gotta be honest, I really didn't like this one.
The main issue is simple: It feels hyperfocused on the violence and shock aspects of the writing, rather than focusing on telling a compelling story and having interesting characters. Books one-three also could get quite graphic at times, but at least they had pretty solid characters and stories going on. And the despicable acts such as SA/rape/abuse/etc. was usually done only by the characters who are obvious villains.
In this book? The character writing seems to have taken a large step back quality-wise. Also, a lot of the POV characters we follow now are just straight up abusive misogynist bigots, some even being rapists. And the book doesn't portray them as villains or anything, some of these characters are even in the end shown as noble heroes. And I'm like...no, they're really, really not.
This was just an unpleasant book to read because of this. Also, it really feels that 90% of this book is just characters bickering with one another about who gets to have sex with who. Gone are the days of interesting character interactions and relationships from the previous installments, most of this book is just various characters being peeved with one another about who gets to bed who (or sometimes other drama). Again, this just isn't pleasant to read about. Who would want to read a book that's just constantly our main characters bickering with one another? Certainly not me. It just gets old really fast, especially when the characters and relationships aren't even well-written and/or likable.
This book also feels somewhat contradictory towards the previous installment. In book three, it looked like Sarabande was setting up Torka's tribe to be a lot more progressive in their ways than the other tribes they came across. Yet in this installment, they're just as bigoted and misogynist as every other tribe. Just feels like it failed to deliver on what was set up in book three.
I'm also not too fond of the huge time skip in this book, I honestly think it is a missed opportunity from the author not to have shown any of Manaravak (who was raised by Wanawuts in book three, as you might remember) grow up under humans. He's just suddenly acting as a human man in this book (with one or two animal-like tendencies). But he doesn't really feel like a character who used to be a feral child. Again, how interesting would it have been to see Torka and Lonit struggle to raise him as a human, for him to bond with Umak, for him to grow up? Missed potential.
Oh yeah, speaking of Torka and especially Lonit are really taking a back seat this time around. Torka is still decently present, but Lonit is no longer a strong well-written character and has basically been reduced to a "caring mother" archetype and not much else. She wasn't my favorite in books one-three or anything, but she was pretty well-written and prominent there. Kind of a shame to see her forgotten like this.
So is there no redeeming qualities of this book? Eh, I wouldn't say none. The world-building can still be interesting and I do like Larani as a character, she's probably the only major one out of this entire book I'd still consider decently likable. She has a pretty strong arc.
But like, that's where my praise ends. I mostly really disliked reading this book and was uncomfortable throughout most of it. I'm not saying an author can never write about dark subject matter like this, but when it feels like it's only done for shock value and there is very little other good qualities to be found in the book, I think maybe one should stop and think if this is the right path.
Rating: 2/5
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