Ratha's creature

Quasi perfetto! Quasi, perché questo è un romanzo di crescita, un percorso alla scoperta del mondo e di sé, dove la protagonista, in un mondo dove alcuni felini sono dotati di intelletto e parola e fanno i mandriani, Ratha fà una scoperta esaltante e terribile -e ne pagherà lo scotto con l'esilio, durante il quale crescerà fino a realizzare il proprio destino, che lo voglia o no!
Quasi perfetto, perché è molto difficile seguire la sua crescita fisica. Il libro inizia con lei che è poco più che cucciola e poi tutto procede ad una tale velocità che quando arriva la maturazione si rimane spiazzati! Manca, a livello psicologico, quello sviluppo del personaggio che ne farebbe meglio apprezzare l'evoluzione. Ma per il resto, un ritratto come un film di Don Bluth bello maturo dovrebbe essere!

Because the whole situation of prehistoric big cats, some of which talk and keep livestock like humans, fighting against each other until one of them tames “the Red Tongue” kept me interested throughout, I consider this a good book. I liked Ratha, and I appreciate the author's efforts to keep her realistic and flawed. The book's world and story was strong enough to keep me reading.

However, I think the way the plot ‘flows' is the book's weakness. The whole story was predictable, and each time I reached a major plot point, I knew whatever happened happened because, well, because plot. I don't know about y'all, but when I read a book, I don't want to feel the plot like that. Things should just happen naturally. For example, Ratha realizes that her cubs are ‘witless' and becomes so angry that she attempts to murder one cub, then purposefully injures her mate. In that moment, I knew the author placed that moment there for no reason other than to drive Ratha back to the Named. It was too obvious. She was also daydreaming way too much about raising her cubs to be like the Named—more daydreaming than is usually allowed for a book character—earlier in that chapter. So, I knew her cubs would turn out to be ‘witless' already. Much of the book was like this: extremely predictable. Many moments in the book made me think, oh, this is happening so that this can happen later on, rather than, oh, this is happening because this happened earlier.

But other than that, I still think that this was a good book, and I admire the author's creativity with this one. I think it deserves 3.8 stars.