Reviews

I went into this book REALLY trying to like it.

I did not.

This was probably the first time I actually got bothered by the "Tell don't show" stuff that people love to complain about. And this book is filled with it.
The beggining is actually really good, though I still feel like we could've spent more time in Kyoshi's childhood. The entire part in the glacier was amazing, and it felt like reading a TLOK episode, great use of bending and pacing. The story gets tense and you feel like this is going to be an "adult" (for lack of better word) avatar story...
And then the rest of the book doesn't really feel like it?

The middle is an absolute slog where I enjoyed way more the chapters following Jianzhu's perspective (can we just talk about how great of a villain he is? Probably my favorite part of the book). I could not, for the life of me, care for the group Kyoshi joined, they felt kind of useless besides giving her exposition about her family. I can't even remember their names.

And then the end came. Out of freaking nowhere. They 100% needed more pages for that ending.

Spoiler

So that one kid dies, Rangi gets kidnapped and Kyoshi finally confronts Jianzhu. The fight we've been building up to. And the fight is... Kyoshi holding a tea-shop from collapsing... Oh, but it shows that she has grown as an earthbender and can now take on the greatest earthbender of the century!... except, wasn't the whole point that she needed to get better at controling small things? Isn't she holding up the whole tea shop kind of ignoring all of that? I mean, sure. There was the small rock she was trying to use to kill him. But in the end that small rock gets used by someone else, so... wot.

Anyway. I think I may have read this with way too much of an expectation, so that would explain why I was so f-ing disappointed. I'll probably not gonna read the sequel, because I've seen people say the first one is better, so... yeah.

everdeeen's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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

3.0

I finally finished it! It took me so long to read this, I had to read other 4 books in the meantime. Love the avatar universe so I thought this would be a light and fast read but I kept tuning out, couldn't stay focused for more than a paragraph at a time. I wish I liked it more, I don't think I'll continue this series. At least not now.

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