A review by cyanide_latte
After the Fall by E.C. Myers
4.0
Almost the moment that this novel was announced, my husband and I had to pre-order it. He's a huge RWBY fan and got me into the series, and getting an entire novel based around Team CFVY was such an exciting prospect! He hasn't read this yet, but I'm glad I finally managed to finish it.
I should start by saying that before I read After the Fall, I did come across a video on YouTube that discussed how the book fits into the RWBY canon timeline of events, so I was obviously spoiled for almost the entire plot of the book prior to ever reading it. I tried to make sure there was some time between when I watched that video and when I read this in order for the information to not be fresh in my mind, and I partially succeeded. The story that occurs in the book's present time was still mostly new to me, but a lot of the background information given in flashback chapters had stuck with me longer, and I got through those chapters much faster because I essentially skim-read them.
You follow Team CFVY where they presently are, and for a point of reference, the story in "current-day" is occurring around the same time or shortly after the ending of volume 5 of the animated show. The team has been in the country of Vacuo, making their way to Shade Academy, since shortly after the ending of volume 3, and they've been having a time of it. We follow one major mission they're on at this point in time, but we get frequent flashbacks to the childhoods of Coco, Fox and Yatsuhashi throughout the book, and a lot of flashbacks to some of the team's time spent at Beacon.
There are a fair few chapters just dedicated to Beacon flashbacks, and in these (and towards the end of the book overall,) the narrative shifts into a third-person omniscient narration that is a little haphazard. The entire book is meant to have a third-person omniscient narrative overall, but generally Myers wrote clear breaks into the book when it was time to shift from following the thoughts and perspective of one character to the next. But after a while, we go from focusing on one character in a single paragraph to suddenly being in the headspace of a different one in the next, and I'm afraid that bothered me quite a bit.
Overall, I enjoyed this though! I think it's not entirely necessary to read for those who keep up with the show, but I enjoyed getting to know more about Team CFVY, and I think the fight scenes and world-building were spectacular. This has, if anything, whet my appetite and made me eager to see how the animators are going to handle the setting of Vacuo and Shade Academy when they get to it in the show.
I should start by saying that before I read After the Fall, I did come across a video on YouTube that discussed how the book fits into the RWBY canon timeline of events, so I was obviously spoiled for almost the entire plot of the book prior to ever reading it. I tried to make sure there was some time between when I watched that video and when I read this in order for the information to not be fresh in my mind, and I partially succeeded. The story that occurs in the book's present time was still mostly new to me, but a lot of the background information given in flashback chapters had stuck with me longer, and I got through those chapters much faster because I essentially skim-read them.
You follow Team CFVY where they presently are, and for a point of reference, the story in "current-day" is occurring around the same time or shortly after the ending of volume 5 of the animated show. The team has been in the country of Vacuo, making their way to Shade Academy, since shortly after the ending of volume 3, and they've been having a time of it. We follow one major mission they're on at this point in time, but we get frequent flashbacks to the childhoods of Coco, Fox and Yatsuhashi throughout the book, and a lot of flashbacks to some of the team's time spent at Beacon.
There are a fair few chapters just dedicated to Beacon flashbacks, and in these (and towards the end of the book overall,) the narrative shifts into a third-person omniscient narration that is a little haphazard. The entire book is meant to have a third-person omniscient narrative overall, but generally Myers wrote clear breaks into the book when it was time to shift from following the thoughts and perspective of one character to the next. But after a while, we go from focusing on one character in a single paragraph to suddenly being in the headspace of a different one in the next, and I'm afraid that bothered me quite a bit.
Overall, I enjoyed this though! I think it's not entirely necessary to read for those who keep up with the show, but I enjoyed getting to know more about Team CFVY, and I think the fight scenes and world-building were spectacular. This has, if anything, whet my appetite and made me eager to see how the animators are going to handle the setting of Vacuo and Shade Academy when they get to it in the show.