Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads De Kronieken van Lutra #2: Pip en de zoektocht naar het Magische Artefact.
Okay, so I didn't review book one on this blog because it had an AI-generated cover (which I didn't figure out until after I'd finished reading it), so I just wrote a brief one-star review on Goodreads, since I don't want any AI shit on this blog.
Now for book two the author seems to have at least partially learned her lesson by getting a proper cover artist. So okay, fair enough, I was willing to give the series a second chance if the author is willing to listen to criticism. Let's take a look at if book two is any better. Spoilers ahead.
Pip, Ava and the gang are still busily looking for the remaining parts of the Magical Artifact in order to save the world of Lutra. Meanwhile, at Grijze Wind's pack, a power struggle is happening, when she-wolf Nya goes rogue and tries to dethrone Grijze Wind for her own gain. On her side is a huge, otter-like monster known as the Dobaku, a monster dead-set on revenge for his lost partner.
Yeah...unfortunately I can't really say that I liked this. I will give it credit for improving on a few things, though. One, of course there's no more AI-slop cover on this sequel. But even the writing is very slightly improved from the first book. A major issue I had in the first installment is that the writing felt very "grocery list"-y. In the sense of, it felt like a series of smaller quests the main characters kept having to complete rather than a flowing narrative. This sequel felt more like a flowing story than the first.
That said, I still wouldn't call the writing good. A huge issue is the lack of descriptions in this book. Lutra is supposedly a rich fantasy setting, but there's almost no descriptions of what any of the places we visit look like. Same for the characters, I legit wouldn't be able to tell what most of our main cast looks like aside from very few small descriptions for a handful of characters. I'm a pretty visual person, I need at least some pointers if I want to be able to create a proper mental image of these characters and places. But this book isn't descriptive at all, which makes it feel stale and the settings not very interesting.
The characters are also pretty damn bland, not gonna lie. I don't outright hate any of them, but these protagonists are just so cookie-cutter basic and have almost no interesting development or defined traits and quirks, which makes them just feel like one of the many Generic Fantasy Protagonists. The worst offenders are probably Pip and Ava themselves. Van den Heuvel would improve a lot even if she just gave these characters some interesting traits or quirks or personality flaws. Because I feel like I barely know these characters despite being in their heads most of the time.
I will say that the character-writing on the wolf-side of things is slightly better. Not great, still, but at least some of the wolves have defined personalities and flaws that set them apart (the wolves are also some of the only characters that have a physical description, by the way). Grijze Wind, his loyal companion Koda and villainess Nya all feel like actual characters and not like fantasy stereotypes. But since Pip and Ava are our main characters, them being so bland is a big issue.
I also spotted some mistakes in this book, including an instance where Grijze Wind (translated into English as Gray Wind) is called Grijze Wolf (Gray Wolf) instead. This was also a typo that occurred in the first book, so it's kinda shameful that this is still happening.
I don't like this book much and I don't recommend it, but I do wish Van den Heuvel the best on her writing journey and hope she continues to improve. And thank you for listening to at least some feedback and not using AI garbage as the cover for book two.
Rating: 2/5
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