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nerdy_birdie_reader 's review for:
The Shadow of Kyoshi
by F.C. Yee
Even after the way the first book ended I can’t believe I put this off for so many years. Lucky that The Rise of Kyoshi had a summary and spoilers online for me to read through before I started this book. It’s been years but I prefer the first book over this one.
Plotwise I think this book was okay-ish. The problem was that I was reading this series of events and just didn’t care. At one point I started skim-reading. I think it’s because I kept viewing this as a prequel series and so already “knew” what the aftermath would be. There were moments where I considered dnfing this. Not because it was bad but at the time I was also listening to The Burning God and it was one of the longest audiobooks I’ve listened to this year and needed to finish it.
Compared to the first book, characters fell flat here. First you have really wait for the romance. Even then Kyoshi and Rangi didn’t feel healthy for me. Also I didn’t buy Kyoshi’s character development (… semi-development? This book was more focused on the world than characters imo). I remember in Avatar: The Last Airbender the Kyoshi Warriors were non-bending women warriors. The Kyoshi Warriors weren’t really seen as resorting to violence to every single thing. Even in the episode of the show where Kyoshi comes (through Aang) we find out Chin the Conqueror was killed when Kyoshi created the island. She didn’t deliberately kill him. In fact fans criticize her for not killing him much sooner. I know there’s a difference between late teens and adult Kyoshi but the gap was bothering me too much. There was this one character from the first book who came back as a major surprise and their concluding arc didn’t feel satisfying.
I’m not getting into what happened with Yangchen and Kuruk. It almost felt like a retcon of the series cannon?Kuruk HIMSELF literally said he was a laidback and go with the flow kind of Avatar and didn’t have the best advice to give Aang, the next avatar born after a whole genocide so what was happening here????? Still, the fact that I was more invested in (maybe retconned?) previous avatars confirmed that there was something lacking in Kyoshi. I will not be picking up any other books in this verse. Not sure who to recommend this for because as an Avatar fan I found this disappointing.
Plotwise I think this book was okay-ish. The problem was that I was reading this series of events and just didn’t care. At one point I started skim-reading. I think it’s because I kept viewing this as a prequel series and so already “knew” what the aftermath would be. There were moments where I considered dnfing this. Not because it was bad but at the time I was also listening to The Burning God and it was one of the longest audiobooks I’ve listened to this year and needed to finish it.
Compared to the first book, characters fell flat here. First you have really wait for the romance. Even then Kyoshi and Rangi didn’t feel healthy for me. Also I didn’t buy Kyoshi’s character development (… semi-development? This book was more focused on the world than characters imo). I remember in Avatar: The Last Airbender the Kyoshi Warriors were non-bending women warriors. The Kyoshi Warriors weren’t really seen as resorting to violence to every single thing. Even in the episode of the show where Kyoshi comes (through Aang) we find out Chin the Conqueror was killed when Kyoshi created the island. She didn’t deliberately kill him. In fact fans criticize her for not killing him much sooner. I know there’s a difference between late teens and adult Kyoshi but the gap was bothering me too much. There was this one character from the first book who came back as a major surprise and their concluding arc didn’t feel satisfying.
I’m not getting into what happened with Yangchen and Kuruk. It almost felt like a retcon of the series cannon?