A review by rinku
Leopardstar's Honor by Erin Hunter

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad 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

3.5

I know the fans don’t like Leopardstar’s Honor and it’s one of the worst rated Super Editions but I somehow enjoyed it so much that I gave it 3.5 stars. Leopardstar is a flawed character, and much is a retelling of the first arc, but I still liked it. 

Like it’s the custom for many Super Editions, this book follows Leopardstar’s life, starting with her being a kit and ending after The Darkest Hour timeline wise. It’s always nice to read about RiverClan and it’s quite in the focus, so much that the other Clans are only seen after like 100 pages. Her trauma around water was really interesting and a bit disturbing since
there was a literal random murder attempt at her as a kit?
. The apprentice sections were fun to read about as well and when Leopardpaw is over her trauma, we also get some fun water sections. 

Even though I know what’ll happen, the rest of story was quite engaging, even though it felt a bit disjointed because of all the time skips. I love that plot-wise, this novel goes back to the roots of Warriors and focusses more on mythology and – you name it – war. There are way more deaths, injuries, and misery compared to the current main series books, and they’re all quite emotional and sad, like the death of
Whitefang or Whiteclaw
, but also sometimes a bit predictable, like
Frogleap’s
. 

Of course, towards the end with Tigerclaw appearing (who still feels like a real threat after all these years), we get even more drama. It’s kinda creepy
that Mudfur was right from the beginning. It was a bit unbelievable that Leopardstar would trust Tigerclaw so fast. It was so tense how Leopardstar slowly loses control of the situation and doesn’t even realize it. By the way, leader ceremonies will never not feel magical
. 

I know that many people hate her, but I actually liked Leopardstar here quite a lot. At the beginning, she behaves very differently compared to The Prophecies Begin. She’s of course flawed what we already see in her behaviour towards Whitepaw, but she’s flawed in an interesting way. It was nice to see how she struggled with her responsibility, even though her sudden change of mind was a bit unbelievable. From her POV, it’s also understandable why the other Clans are always so frustrated with ThunderClan. The relationship between Leopardstar and Mudfur, who’s now her dad, is so interesting as well. Besides them, I’m always happy to see Crookedfur but I found it a bit weird that Mistypaw and Stonepaw were barely mentioned. 

Personally, I think that Leopardstar’s Honor is one of the more interesting Super Editions. There are no random animals made up just for this book, and the stuff that we already know of gets extended. 
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