Book Review: The Legend of the Plaid Parakeet by K.J. Backer (Pet Legends #3)

 

The third book in the series. Perhaps the last? It has been a while since this released and I haven't seen any updates on Pet Legends in a bit. 

Spoilers ahead.

Wallace and his owner, a girl named Vertie, move to Australia, where Verties mother goes to work as a doctor. But arriving in the new continent, the duo is split up. Vertie goes to search for Wallace with a new friend, while Wallace befriends a cockatiel named Lucy. They are now up against a prison escapee and his cronies as they threaten to harm those Wallace loves.

Not a bad book, but I do think that this is my least favorite Pet Legends installment so far. It recycles yet again the format of "main character has to rescue someone he cares about from a group of one-dimensional villains" plotline that also existed in the previous two books. Wouldn't it be more fun if the author shook it up a little with each installment in this anthology series, and gave each book a completely separate plot and didn't recycle plot points as much?

I also didn't vibe as much with the characters this time around. I liked the main casts of the previous installments pretty well. They weren't the most developed characters of all time, but they were serviceable and likable enough. Yet something about Wallace and his crew just didn't really speak to me. I think the only character I kinda liked was Lucy, but the rest just felt so generic and bland I couldn't be bothered to care much about them. The villains were also once again very one-dimensional and uninteresting.

The story was also once again quite rushed. If we'd taken more time to breathe and properly developed the characters, I'd probably have cared a lot more about this book. But like in Colosseo Cat, the plot flies by with very little time to take things in. I get that it's a short book, but it doesn't hurt to give your reader a breather once every while.

That said, I do still think that this is a solid enough book, hence the positive rating. But I personally didn't vibe with it as much.

Rating: 3.5/5