Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Avatar, the Last Airbender: The Legacy of Yangchen by F.C. Yee

16 reviews

pandacosm's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

It's a relief to finally get an Avatar novel by F. C. Yee that has a

real happy ending and where friends actually stay loyal and play important parts in the final climactic battle

. I have to admit, reading the prior books partly ruined the mood for me all the way through because

I kept on expecting betrayals or a tainted, Pyrrhic victory, so the highs of the book couldn't be enjoyed

. And this book still has points that I consider unnecessarily dark for the Avatarverse, like

literally having a tortured child kill a sky bison and then die himself. Yeah, that happened

. It was an interesting book. I'm relieved this is the end of the series.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Sorry if I missed any content warnings. There was a lot of dark stuff as usual.

sdpersaud89's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, and Abandonment

sfstefanie's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Backdrop of Plutocratic rise, discussions of morality

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Drug use, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Pretty mild, book suitable for teens

luciferlibrarian_93's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

4.25 ⭐️ this was so much better than the first Yangchen book!! She’s out here playing 3D Chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Blood

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Violence, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Torture and Trafficking

fantasy_voyager98's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Blood

Moderate: Child death, Blood, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement, Torture, and Vomit

alyanna_dm's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, and Blood

Moderate: Violence

kappafrog's review against another edition

3.75

Like the first book, Yangchen was great in this. I love what Yee has done with her character. This book felt more balanced between Kavik and Yangchen - I wasn't as annoyed when the POV switched to him. I also enjoyed the greater variety in settings in this book. Bin-Er never gave me a lot of rich visuals, but Taku and the other settings in this book did. I do think this book struggled a bit more with the plot than the previous one though. There were more plot holes and contrivances. People were constantly sharing only partial truths, and the timeline kept jumping around, so between those two I ended up having a hard time keeping up with the reality of the situation. By the end of the book, I felt there were a few parts where I'd never quite understood who knew what and when. Yee tried to pack a LOT into this book, and some things felt pretty rushed. For example,

Kavik discovering Yangchen's abuse of the the Spirit Oasis drug was never brought up again, and not a lot of time was spent on Nujian's death.

Overall though, this was a rich episode in the Avatar world that I'm glad I spent some time in.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Torture, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Alcohol

twistedflower2357's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I really really loved this book and couldn't put it down. I'll try not to rehash things I said in my previous review for The Dawn of Yangchen, because I think The Legacy of Yangchen shares or exceeds everything I had to praise about its predecessor. Both Yangchen and Kavik are increased in their complexity, their characterization now even more intrinsically tied to the plot. The way FC Yee poises Chaisee and Kalyaan as Yangchen and Kavik's dark foils, respectively, allows us to really dig into the heart of our protagonists and what drives them. More than ever, Yangchen has to grapple with her humanity and the eternal psychological horror of being the Avatar, condemned to regret mistake after mistake after mistake. Her and Kavik have beautiful arcs and their relationship with each other is even more compelling than it was in the first book.

The worldbuilding is rich, the prose filled with clever in-universe koans, and the limits of bending possibilities are explored with clever, horrifying detail without feeling too permissive (it's easy to get caught up in questions like "can earthbenders bend glass" and "can airbenders bend the air from someone's lungs" without regarding the actual implications these abilities would have on the world). This time, I felt much more favorably towards FC Yee's apparent habit of withholding information from the audience until a later point and layering flashbacks during the finale to reveal information non-chronologically. The pacing flowed better and I enjoyed the feeling of having the rug pulled from under me.

The greatest issue I had with the book is perhaps the most spoiler-ific one.

It hurts my heart to say, but I didn't feel like we had enough time to sit with Nujian's death. The pace was so breakneck that it almost felt like a plotpoint left by the wayside, happening for no real reason other than to pile onto the cosmic horrors Yangchen must face as the Avatar. I just wish we could have explored Yangchen's grief across a longer timeframe; there are a few pages of the simply gut-wrenching immediate aftermath from her perspective, a single flashback later on, and little beyond that. Another small issue I had was with "Team Avatar"'s acceptance of Kavik in the end. The huddling scene itself was lovely, but I was disappointed that Jujinta, Tayagum, and Akuudan's forgiveness was given like a joke. I think this conflict was deserving of a serious resolution.

But these are, however, relatively minor problems I have. I think the strengths of this book, and this series as a whole, far outshine these issues for me. This is definitely a book I recommend diving into.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Child abuse

Moderate: Child death, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug abuse and Torture

haleybre's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

astropova's review against another edition

adventurous tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Loved it! Though I'm surprised they didn't go back to Yangchen's lack of control over her past lives manifesting.

They even brought it up in a way I thought would become plot-relevant, but no dice.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, and Death