rinku 's review for:

Ort ohne Sterne by Erin Hunter

3.5

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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 Compared to its predecessors, The Place of No Stars is not as eventful. Still, it’s an important book to build up the final confrontation and was engaging nevertheless, so I gave it 3.5 stars. 

After the events of Darkness Within, Squirrelflight disappeared into the Dark Forest with Ashfur and the Clan cats are unsure what to do about it. In the first third of the book, they just talk about this which was a bit boring but better than unnecessary fights between the Clans. Still, conflicts could’ve been solved more easily if the cats for once believed each other. They discuss for a long time who should go into the Dark Forest and then settle on

Willowshine, out of all cats. She is there for like a few minutes and then just dies? I didn’t believe this at first because it just happened so quickly

. This then leads to

Rootspring being dragged by her into the Moonpool, so that he’s in the Dark Forest as well; Shadowsight and Bristlefrost both go too iirc

. 

Especially those sequences in the Dark Forest were so great because this whole setting is very atmospheric and – like its name suggests – dark. The stakes are also so high there because there’s a mist that destroys everything in its way which was kinda creep as well. I also love moments in books where all characters are at the same place but don’t see each other. 

This book again ends with such a mean cliff hanger, just like all chapters in <i>The Place of No Stars</i>:

Bramblestar has his body finally back and it seems that everything is good (of course it isn’t since there’s a sixth book), but then Rootspring gets attacked on the last pages and is not able to return to the living world

. 

I really liked how some relationships between cats developed in this one, mostly through talking which was so nice in comparison to other rushed relationships. A friendship starts to bloom between Rootspring and Shadowsight, and Shadowsight and Tigerstar finally make up. I find it a bit funny how everyone knows about Rootspring x Bristlefrost but no one really cares. Overall, the emotions of the protagonists were so well portrayed in this novel, especially Bristlefrost’s. I also arranged myself now with the size of ThunderClan, and I really liked Snowtuft. 

The Place of No Stars is all in all another good book in The Broken Code arc, focussing surprisingly more on its characters than the main plot. I particularly didn’t expect the Dark Forest sequences to be as good as they were.