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rinku's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
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? No
4.0
In Shattered Sky, the plot around the rouges comes to an epic conclusion with many dark moments until then. The story is following a real and clear plot compared to many books of the previous arcs. Like always, there are many storylines and POVs, but I was invested in all of those this time.
This book instantly starts into action with a fight between the rogues and all Clans which I really enjoyed. The main plot still resolves around those rogues, but Twigpaw also tries to find SkyClan to fulfil the prophecy. I can see here why people say that Bramblestar is a bad leader. He doesn’t listen to Alderheart and doesn’t want to search for SkyClan, even though it’s obvious that this is meant by the prophecy. Twigpaw disobeys him and she later finds SkyClan by herself – this was such a nice and heart-warming scene. I already guess that Hawkwing would be their father because he has his own super edition, so this was no surprise to me .
The drama between all the leaders was so entertaining and over the top, especially because so many Clans are chilling in ThunderClan camp. Rowanstar and Bramblestar always beefing. At some point, there are even three other Clans finding refuge at ThunderClan camp and it's so funny to just imagine how full their camp must be.
Darktail is such a good villain and it’s nice to have a villain outside the Clans again, I honestly like him more than Scourge. His “family” is so cruel and evil; at some points maybe too cruel for a children’s book, for example when Rain tried to choke Darktail or when Darktail literally waterboarded Violetpaw when her plan failed, then he forced Needletail to kill Violetpaw, but she decides not to. This is such a strong moment and Needletail truly redeemed herself in the end when she gave her life for Violetpaw’s . He later takes RiverClan hostages that the Clans are trying to free which was also a quite dark plot point. It was interesting to see that Needletail started to realize what is the right side and started helping the Clans; her redemption arc was so amazing .
If it wasn’t for the finale, Shattered Sky would’ve been a five-star read for me, but the climax of the story was rather weak: First, the rescuing of the hostages was not as epic as I hoped for and it happened rather fast. Then, we get to know the truth behind Darktail: he’s the son of Onestar and a kittypet – I was wheezing when I read this because it came just out of the blue. I don’t like the undertone though that most of the “evil” cats grow up with only their mom (Darktail, Hawkfrost, Tigerstar, Scourge). The final fight against Darktail’s family was also a bit short and nothing special because our MCs just stand at the side and watch the battle. I also didn’t like the battle between Onestar and Darktail, but finally Onestar is dead. Harestar is now going to be the new leader of WindClan and I have literally no opinion on him (I even had to look up which gender he is), so this will be boring .
It was also interesting to see the relationship between Violetpaw and Twigpaw changing throughout Shattered Sky. At the beginning, it’s really bad and the sisters even fight each other. Still, you can see that that Violetpaw always cared for Twigpaw because she was so sad when she heard that her sister supposedly died. It was quite obvious that Twigpaw was not actually dead, but it was told very cleverly that the reader could think she actually died. Their family reunion with Hawkwing was so cute and seemingly, the problems of the sisters resolve .
Talking about the sisters, I find it weird that Violetpaw cares so much for Needletail and bounds with Darktail’s family, even though they only treat her badly. She luckily later realizes that she should help the Clans , this was a nice character arc of her.
Shattered Sky could’ve easily been the end of <i>A Vision of Shadows</i> because the first three books tell a good coherent story that was very engaging. I liked the main characters most of the time and they had interesting relationships to other cats. There are now three books left in this arc, which seems a bit much and they’re hopefully not just filler books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death
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