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A review by ashmeanything
Rise of the Evening Star by Brandon Mull
3.5
3.5/5 - While this sequel had a lot of the same magical elements as the original, it definitely did not stand up to the first, in my eyes. First, the good: the author has a really clear idea of this world, how it works, and how the characters interact within it. The character work and consistency of Fablehaven the place as well as Fablehaven the series is really strong. There were some really lovely moments within this book that developed the familiar characters further, and I loved seeing those as a fan of the original. The new characters felt like seamless extensions of the story, and I loved seeing how many kinds of magic exist in the world of these books. Unfortunately, some of the new elements that raised the tension also raised the chaos, and it was harder to follow this book's plot. I can understand the need to set up for future books as well as differentiate from what's been done, but the number of betrayals and surprises while reading caused too many backtracking moments for me. I found myself caring what happened but getting distracted at points because of the difficult path we took to get there. The intensity of the ending and the twist brought me back, though, so I will definitely continue the series for now.
Several problematic elements left me confused as to why they'd been included. Coulter, a new character, is mentioned multiple times as being antiquated in his view of what women can do vs. men (e.g. "the forest is too dangerous for you but not for your little brother"), and there was no resolution to having a sexist character besides... the fact that he was there. Cool, I guess? I also didn't like the language used around the debilitating condition that affected several characters - please never refer to someone as "the albino", especially when that is a real thing that is not the same as the unique disability that was created for this story. Finally, there is a stereotype of Native American people briefly mentioned in the background of a location. While I didn't love this depiction, I do see the time the story was written and can believe that it was the same misunderstanding many people had at the time. Given its brevity and non-importance to the story at large, it was easier to categorize as unintentional (though I've not yet verified that outside of the book). Overall, though, there were too many uncomfortable bits for me to rate this as highly as I'd hoped.
Content warning for animal death, mutilation, violence, injury, sexism, racial stereotyping, betrayal, kidnapping, and ableism.
Several problematic elements left me confused as to why they'd been included. Coulter, a new character, is mentioned multiple times as being antiquated in his view of what women can do vs. men (e.g. "the forest is too dangerous for you but not for your little brother"), and there was no resolution to having a sexist character besides... the fact that he was there. Cool, I guess? I also didn't like the language used around the debilitating condition that affected several characters - please never refer to someone as "the albino", especially when that is a real thing that is not the same as the unique disability that was created for this story. Finally, there is a stereotype of Native American people briefly mentioned in the background of a location. While I didn't love this depiction, I do see the time the story was written and can believe that it was the same misunderstanding many people had at the time. Given its brevity and non-importance to the story at large, it was easier to categorize as unintentional (though I've not yet verified that outside of the book). Overall, though, there were too many uncomfortable bits for me to rate this as highly as I'd hoped.
Content warning for animal death, mutilation, violence, injury, sexism, racial stereotyping, betrayal, kidnapping, and ableism.