Ha'ani

A charming book about the horror of being kidnapped, nearly getting brainwashed, having your down feathers plucked, almost getting blood-sucked by vampire bats, etc. And then escaping.

I liked this book. Started reading it last night, finished it this afternoon. I had tried, years ago in middle school, to read this book, but I just couldn't get through it. It had seemed boring and too dark, or something like that.

But now, as a junior in high school, this book was great. I can now see the creativity and purpose in this book. And I liked the characters and the originality of the whole book.

PROS:
- the chapters are short and straight to the point. The author does not waste her time with detailed descriptions unless they mean something to the characters.
- The book is fairly realistic. Like, comparing this to other fantasy books about non-human beings (Wings of Fire, Warriors, etc.), children do not randomly know or think about details they logically shouldn't know about (they think like what they are–children), the owls don't shrug (I don't know how warrior cats shrug without sitting back on their butts to painfully lift their paws off the ground with their shoulders), and the language the owls use is unique and makes sense (except for one time when Twilight's fighting some owls and sings about “punching”).
- The stakes. I really, really badly wanted them to escape. Which I guess is actually due to the characters: The characters were likeable. I guess a large part of that being that they are innocent children who I don't want to see blood-sucked or feather-plucked.
- The story and the world are very original. I'm sure the kidnapped-orphans-try-to-save-the-world plot has been done before, but the way in which the book deals with this plot is very original.

CONS:
- Some might see the language and style of the dialogue as distracting, as the owls do not speak “modern English”, but a more classy-sounding English mixed in with owl slang.
- People who like detailed, clever descriptions of setting may not like the book, as it describes only the necessary (it is not as bad as warriors, though!)
- Some characters and ideas seem a bit...basic. Like, Kludd. Kludd, in this book, is an evil big brother who complains a lot, and Mrs. Plithiver senses something very un-owlish about him. He's kind of evil for no reason other than to be evil, it seems. And because he's “mean”, he is un-owlish. This observation disappointed me because it gave off a belief of, “He is evil; therefore, he is not ‘human'”. Villains have depth and feelings, too. That's what makes them interesting. Also, the theme of believing is not really expanded upon to have deeper meaning; it's more like a repeated concept. That also may just be the author's way of portraying how children think about the world, however–if I believe it, it is real.

Pretty good. I initially read it because at a writer's camp, a girl recommended it to me. I asked her why she liked it so much and she just shrugged and said, I don't know, I just do. But now, I understand. I read it, and I like it. Why? Honestly, no particular reason. It is just well-made.

The book holds a themes of redemption and identity as Chase Ambrose struggles to find his place in school after falling off a roof and getting amnesia. He then figures out that he used to be a horrible bully and spends the rest of the book making amends with the people he used to torment.

One interesting thing about this book is the wide range of narrators. As many as 7 characters take turns narrating, but it is always in 1st person. Similar to Tui T. Sutherland's Darkstalker, each chapter declares the P.O.V. before it starts. So, that was unique and fresh.

Overall, I enjoyed it.

Moral: It's never too late to turn your life around.

I don't remember a lot of this book, as I read it quite a while ago. But, I do remember being super invested in Twigbranch and Violetshine's challenged relationship, and also being terrified and sad for Needletail. Alderheart is still one of my favorite characters to this day. And Darktail was a great villain, I think. I remember being scared of him and thinking that he was super epic.

But other than that, don't remember much.

This book surprised me! I finished it in three days.

I loved the characters of Scythe Faraday and Scythe Curie, but especially Faraday. I love how unpredictable he is sometimes, and every one of his moments is very memorable.

I don't think I will forget the scene where a naughty kid is so triumphant when he sneaks a kiss on Faraday's ring (which grants him immunity for a year), and then is immediately horrified when Scythe tells him, "Congratulations, you get immunity for a year. And when that time is up, I'll be showing up at your house." That's not the complete phrasing, but something like that. Or those scenes where Faraday commands Citra and Rowan to do something, and they refuse, and then he reveals it was actually a test. It got kind of old the second time, but they are still memorable scenes. Or when one chapter ends with Faraday saying hopefully, "Maybe things will change." Maybe things will get better. And then...The next chapter starts, and Scythe Faraday is declared dead.He was sort of unpredictable (or at least intended to be unpredictable), and I liked it a lot. Now, the romance was so forced and silly in the beginning, and questionable in the middle, but at the end it was satisfying.

At first, the book made me think about death. Regardless of our differences, all humans–us–we have the same destination, and that is the grave. The book made me think about that. It led me to decide that our short lifespans are actually blessings, because they make us think. They motivate us, and they make us more greatful about our existence. They make us seek truth and purpose, and they can lead us to the real truth and real purpose. In a world of immortality, all of these things are lost.

But then, as the book goes on, it kind of makes you numb to death. Of course, the main characters protest mass killings, but there are still a lot of violent deaths described very casually. I guess, in the context and entire plot of the book (and considering its length), this dilution of emotion is an unavoidable effect. I still think that the book is great.

The first thing I thought when I finished this book: What the tingling Teva did I just read?

I was interested in the cloning part. The Sci-fi mystery part. Why does Teva duplicate every year? And it was interesting seeing the strangeness of living in a house filled with your older selves, and sharing memories with those selves, and...it was interesting!

But the author doesn't let the book be about that interesting stuff. Instead, she turns it into a generic high school drama with the sci-fi stuff in the background.

Why? I don't care about the creepy Ollie guy, or Tommo who wants Teva to rub baby oil on his chest. I don't care! They aren't interesting characters, they don't raise the stakes for what should be the main plot.

I do care about conflicts directly related to Teva's “condition”, like when she worries about showing too much of her weirdly-marked clone skin during a fashion show. But that's it.

The climax was kinda dumb.

Teva dies, and a new Teva comes out and yells at her lab dad (who completely appears out of nowhere. Well, I guess it was hinted at earlier, but come on...) to tell him YOU DID THIS! And everyone backs her up and they make a big scene out of it...And the clones all go to school and get normal lives...But there is no solution. Our protagonist just died for no reason. And will Teva keep cloning until she dies? Or is every old Teva gonna die, like 16, when the new Teva emerges? Nobody knows!

This book would have been good on Wattpad, but as a published book it's a bit disappointing.

It was an interesting book, but it was also kind of boring. I love the author's idea, and the gimmick of Kit becoming different animals is cool. The way the author describes being different animals was really cool, and the whole ‘jumping' business affects Kit's behavior and identity as a human on an interesting way. Like, it's a good book.

But, also, it was kinda hard to get through. The first three chapters got me interested, but after that I couldn't really sense momentum or progression in the story. It took me a while to even figure out what the book was about. By that, I mean I couldn't tell where it was going. This made the middle feel like filler, or that little was actually happening.

And then, maybe it's just the writing style, but a lot of story elements felt very vague. I like it when author's don't over explain everything, but this time I wish some things were clarified. Maybe it was just that I wasn't fully invested, but it took me a while to catch onto the fact that the Come Home and Uncanny Shift chapters we're jumping back and forth through time. Also, even after reading the book, I have no idea what Kit's mom had to do with the plot. Was she a symbol or something? Was she supposed to reveal something about Kit? Honestly, I think she was filler.

And then, Tomoko. When Tomoko started showing up in later chapters, I was confused. I didn't realize she was important. I still don't entirely understand why she was important. I guess she's the final link between Kit and phenomenautism. Or something like that. I dunno.

Overall, good book with a great ending and beginning, but a droopy middle that you might suffer through.

This book was okay. It was interesting enough, but not nearly as good as its predecessor The Lost Continent. I feel that Cricket was much more interesting in the last book, and likewise Blue, Swordtail, and Sundew have lost most of the charm and depth they showed in the last book as well. Sundew has been reduced to yelling, Blue has been reduced to sympathetic sappy-face, Swordtail has been reduced to I-need-Luna-or-I-will-die-waaah.

Jewel Hive was a very cool setting, the Chrysalis stuff was interesting, and the mystery of Cricket's origin was something we needed an answer to in order for the plot to move along. However, although this book is just fine, I feel that it was a waste. A lot more could have been achieved in this book, and I think that if Blue, Cricket, Sundew, and Swordtail had just fled straight to the Poison Jungle in this one instead of dwaddling in the Hives, the arc overall could have had more room for more interesting things, and perhaps the final book, Flames of Hope, wouldn't have been so hopelessly (ha, sad pun) rushed.

I'd say this is number 3 on the “worst books of the Lost Continent Arc” list. Flames of Hope (worst), The Poison Jungle, and The Hive Queen. Although, this book really wasn't bad. It was just really okay, Cricket was a pretty boring unrelatable character, and it felt like a waste of potential in a series where each arc is only allowed five books.

I avoided this book for a long time, because after Legends: Dragonslayer and The Dangerous Gift, I just had a feeling that the book would not be that good.

And I don't think 13-year-old Me's intuition was wrong.

Finally, I read it, and it was just okay. It felt bland and different and so much less epic than what I could envision when I read The Lost Continent. The ideas are cool, Lizard was really cool, but the book still sucked. Well, sucked is a strong word. The book simply wasn't that good.

And it's not just a change in my tastes; yeah, I've gotten older and more critical of commercial literature. But, when I go back to older books, such as Legends: Darkstalker, Talons of Power, and Escaping Peril, they are still good, solid books. This book is super forgettable.

Here are my main problems with the book:
1. Humans
2. Bad pacing
3. Boring characters
4. Lack of Epic-ness / the Conclusion

Humans
Ugh. I'm reading a book about dragons...I love Wings of Fire because it is about dragons! But, this book has too much human!

Maybe it's a pet peeve of mine, but I despise Wren. I want her and Sky to stay in their own separate universes, pretty much. Plus, if I hadn't read Dragonslayer, I would be so confused by their presence.

I feel like the humans break the immersion and believability of the books when they are speaking the same language so easily. Plus, Sutherland keeps changing the size of the humans. Are they small enough to fit in dragon claws? But big enough to hold a baby dragon efforlessly? How small are the dragon eggs if the humans can put them in boxes and carry them? In Moon Rising, it is shown that blueberries are bigger than humans. But then, a dragon egg must be smaller than a blueberry? It just makes no sense—I hate the humans, they confuse me too much!

And then, I don't like that in this book they are referred to as “humans”. I miss the term “scavengers.” Even “reading monkeys” is better. Outright saying “human” just breaks the feeling of immersion for me.

Bad Pacing
I know Wings of Fire has always had fast pacing. But this book feels waaaay too fast!
Also, I don't know how, but despite the fast pacing, it feels like barely anything happens. Luna and friends fly to Pantala, some friends get captured, Luna finds Silkwings hiding in a cave, Luna follows human into Abyss, Luna finds out how the mind-control works, Luna defeats mind-control plant. It happens really quickly...but it didn't feel like an adventure.

I wanted the last book to be an adventure, I guess. Like The Lost Continent and The Hive Queen were adventures. Those books had fast pacing, but the pacing was a tool to fit a lot of cool stuff into the narrative. In Flames of Hope, on the other hand, I feel like barely anything happened. I wanted to see Moon trick the HiveWings into thinking she was Clearsight. I wanted to see Queen Wasp get defeated in a real, epic fight. I wanted to see a real battle against the Hivemind, or Breath of Evil, or whatever.

But this book feels really limited and tame, even with the fast pacing. It is just...not exciting. Even when they win, it is done in such a lame way. It is such a downgrade from how this arc began, and I can tell that Sutherland is probably just tired of writing about dragons.

So, the fast pacing in this book, rather than allowing more stuff to happen, results in a choppy, limited, lame book. It feels only partially-done.

Boring Characters
This book has the absolute worst cast of main characters of any Wings of Fire book. The main cast in arcs 1 and 2 are very memorable and distinctive. This book's characters are boooring.

- Bullfrog - clumsy MudWing who doesn't talk

- Pineapple - innocent clowny RainWing

- Lynx - quiet, smart IceWing

- Sky - SkyWing babychild who comes along for no good reason

- Wren - feisty human who comes along for no good reason

These characters cannot really be expanded beyond these basic sentences.

And then we have our beloved Tsunami, Qibli, and Moon...and they are also written so...boringly. Tsunami is reduced to fighting and fierceness and no spark that made her special in previous books. Qibli is cocky and “funny”, but he is also missing something. Moon is fine. She's just fine.

I feel like these characters were not written as well as they were in previous books. It's almost like a different author wrote the book. Again, I think Sutherland is just getting tired of writing dragons—I'd get tired of it, too.

And then Luna...is the most boring of them all. Her personality is literally this: tapestry, fake-smile, girlfriend. She doesn't even have the spirit I thought she had in The Lost Continent. I didn't expect her to be a boring narrator, but she was.

Anyway, the characters are so boring. The new characters were useless, as Sutherland did not attempt to really expand or develop them enough to be likeable or add much to the book. Most of them are useless. Axolotle is most useless of all; I could cut him out of the plot summary, and it would not change a thing. I did not like these characters, and even old characters I already knew just weren't written the same.

Lack of Epic-ness / Conclusion
This book was so...not epic. It was not the satisfying conclusion I believe this arc deserved. There was no large-scale final battle with the LeafWings and Chrysalis pitted against the Hive armies. There was no battle against Queen Wasp, nor was there even a proper, epic villain defeat for her. Clearsight was barely mentioned, even though she is important to the 3rd arc. We don't get a glimpse of the New Pantala, only speculation as the characters talk about what it could be. Why couldn't I see, like, Moon's vision of what it could be, instead? That'd be much more epic!

Like, the thing with Lizard was cool...the thing with the evil human was not cool. He was so boring. The Scorching backstory was interesting, I guess...

But, there was so much potential wasted! There is no epicness in the conclusion of the arc. I am disappointed.

How This Book Can Be Fixed
- further develop side characters
- separate Luna from all her friends except Cricket. That way, irrelevant characters are cut out from the main plot.
- the sub-theme of Luna learning to let go of prejudices could be farther developed if Luna and Cricket were forced to work together alone.
- More Chrysalis for more epicness and adventure
- An actual mission against Wasp + an actual mission to rescue Luna's friends
- More conflict with Blue and Swordtail—Luna is forced to face her loved ones in combat.
- As the enemy closes in, Luna must fight her prejudices even harder and struggles to see the humanity in her enemies. She is confused about Cricket's alliance with her.
- The Abyss thing is a subplot under the main mission to kill Queen Wasp
- In an all-is-lost moment, in the battle against Wasp, Luna is separated from Cricket and plunges into the Abyss. Now, she is alone in a dark cave, and she knows Wasp is winning.
- ...then she discovers the ‘secret buried far below'. Lizard and human-guy.
- After a bit of Lizard and human-guy lore, and Luna must make the choice to kill the plant, even if it also means killing innocent Lizard. It isn't easy, though. She has to fight mind-controlled goons before she can reach the vines.
- She ends up killing Lizard without Lizard's consent (as it is the only way), but shows compassion to Lizard before she dies, giving the dragonet happy memories to experience during her final moments. Lizard does not want to die, but Luna cuts the vine anyways. Luna did what she had to do, but she also found it in her to be compassionate towards her enemy, and see Lizard like she did any other dragon. From Cricket, she has learned to show mercy to her enemies.
- Wasp's mind control stops working, and many confused and exhausted HiveWings flee the battle or collapse. Wasp is captured.
- Luna and her friends are reunited. Then, she sees Blue and Swordtail, and finally, when she looks into their eyes, she can see that they are themselves.
- Through Moonwatcher, we get a glimpse of the future of Pantala and Pyrhhia, and we see that it is the world that Clearsight would have wanted. And it is the world that the Silkwings and LeafWings have been waiting for.

I just thought that off the top of my head, and it is much more complicated to to turn that into a book. But, I think saving the Abyss for the climax would have been the better choice for this book.

Anyway, I think this would be something around 3.3 stars.

It's just okay for a villain orgin story. Small weakling grows up underestimated, proves his worth by becoming a killing machine. We've all seen this story before.

But I liked the art and stuff. Tiny is so cute!

The characters weren't very in-depth or anything. Nor did I feel any kind of satisaction for Scourge. Ya know what, I don't feel like I understand Scourge any better from reading this. Maybe he's just not an interesting character.

Anyway, this book was fine.

This book is so sad! I love it, but it is so sad. The worst part is the ending. I think Charlie was better off before he became smart. And at the expense of getting smart, he throws his happiness, his humanity, and his life away.

Sometimes, I just need to sit down, forget about the world, and read an old kids' book. A kids book, because if it's a well-written one, it will cheer me up or at least make me smile. An old one, because new kids books are cringey and often have the most unfunny jokes in existence.

And by kids book, I don't mean a picture book necessarily, I mean a middle grade kind of thing, like Land of Stories or Harry Potter. Something light and cheerful and fun.

This book is from 2013, and wow—the humor is soooo 2013. Strange to think that it was only 11 years ago, but the humor is so... Different. Relying on alliterations and tongue-twisters, metaphors and puns, and reversal of expectations really makes the style of humor stand out against modern kids books like, I dunno, Catwad (Okay, to be fair, I don't know a lot of ‘modern' middle grade books, so don't take me too seriously here; my sister reads Catwad), where the funniest bits are butt jokes, “trick bad words” (“what the fuuuuuungi?” [example, not a direct quote by the way]), and... Stuff.

Okay, point is, the humor is very different. Ah, and refreshing and nostalgic. I miss the cheesy alliterations of 2013 (“one of the Chompies sunk its long teeth into the Mabu's plump posterior. “) Alliterations aren't necessarily funny, but they add charm and a cheerful, lighthearted tone. Just what I needed today.

And reversal of expectations is one of the oldest methods for humour, but I like it. For example, near the end of the book, some scary librarian warriors arrive in a huge warship, and Hugo admits that they must have figured out that he has the 101 Ways to Get Rid of Sheep and Other Wooly Nuisances he stole years ago from the forbidden archives and never returned. Eon gets angry at poor Hugo and makes him return it to the librarian warriors. But, then it turns out the librarian warriors came to them for help, and had no idea the sheep book was ever missing. Again, this isn't automatically funny, but it made me smile because... I should have seen it coming, but I didn't.

Another repeated method of humor is joke set-up and, a paragraph later, joke pay-off, but I'm not gonna get into that, I've spent way too much time analyzing this old book for middle schoolers.

Okay, basically, this book's 2013 humor made me smile, maybe even chuckle, and feel immense nostalgia. And it was really short and just a nice relax-and-have-a-break-from-real-life book. Like, okay, it's a kids book, but when I'm stressed, I need to pretend I'm a kid again. And admittedly, at 16, I am still attached to the games, so reading this just... Made me happy for that reason. So, 5/5 for that.

But honestly, if I was gonna critique this book as if it wasn't written for middle schoolers in 2013, I would say it is really simple and pure commercial entertainment. Like, there's nothing deep or philosophical or intellectually stimulating in this book. The illustrations are really simple and don't add anything to the book. Except nostalgia—they smell like kool-aid in my mom's car when I was 9...Oops, getting off topic. Anyway, for the audience, I think the author did a great job. But if I was to critique it with the same standard I use for most books, I'd say it'd be a 3.5/5.

Therefore, I'll give this an overall 4/5, but my rating is biased. As you can clearly tell.

It was a good book. I finished it in 4 days, so it was definitely interesting. It was insightful, inspirational, hopeful, and very introspective. I like how it showed the viewpoints of many people, many lives, but through the same eyes. I think that Nathan was a very underused character, and the ending was disappointing. Very vague and disappointing. A basically manipulates the body he is in to give Rhiannon a new boyfriend, since A can never be there for her. And then he runs away. I think the author meant for it to be a vague ending, but I find it pretty unsatisfying. I also think that A was a terrible name for the author to choose for the main character. If this book was written in, like, Japanese or something, A as a name would be acceptable. But in English, a is such a common word, it is one letter–it's barely a sound. It's an article, it's a GRAMMAR thing. Having a character named A makes following certain conversations unnecessarily hard.

Still, I think the book was worth reading. I think I'll give it 3.5 stars.

One of the most wonderful, hearbreaking books I have ever read.

I have never read a book that so perfectly reflects both the animal and human sides of nature. The animals–well, act very realistically animal. Nothing in this book would feel out of place in a documentary (except that it is a lot more exciting than a documentary could ever be). And yet the author reveals the humanity in the animals with two emotions: love and fear.

Well, love and fear, to some, are very primal, very animal emotions. But I think that in this book, these emotions make the animals more human.

Of course, the animals also communicate and think rationally like humans, but I think that the author still does a really good job of showing the spirit of the animal world: the dangers and joys of the wild, the struggle to retain freedom and survive in a world dominated by humans.

But really, at its core, I don't think this is a story about foxes. It is a story about the nature of the world, which is a cycle of life and death, love and gried. We die, and the world goes on for some. The world changes and changes in ways we will never see, and generations that will never meet live and die. It is just a book about nature, which never changes, and the ways in which nature responds to nature, which also never changes.

This book was awesome! To me, Murtagh and Thorn felt much more likeable, tragic, and relatable than Eragon and Saphira. Both Murtagh and Thorn struggle with bugs from their past that continue to bite them. But in the end, of course, they both overcome their past and find a new confidence and identity in themselves. Oh, and they fight a witch and her cult army in order to prevent a giant dragon from eating the sun. Pretty epic.

I sorta read this one on and off in between other books, but still, now I want more of Murtagh! Ooh, and Uvek is my new favorite character. Never thought I'd end up liking an urgal so much.

Not as good as I hoped it would be, but enough to make me wanna read the next one. I guess.

Cats travel, deal with family drama, strive to prove their worth to their new clan, uncover secrets... The usual generic Warriors stuff, but this one still felt pretty fresh.

I couldn't put this book down until I finished it, and yet, looking back on the story, I'd say it actually wasn't that good, but it was exciting and engaging in the moment, and I suppose that's all that matters. It is commercial fiction.