Todd Kosman
*SPOILERS IN REVIEW* I had a difficult time reading this book. The main character, whom we follow through the story, Leafstar, is expected to be leader of her Clan of cats. Time and time again, almost on every page, does she continually not show the qualities of a leader, and repetitively lets cats push her around and takes no initiative on her own, she is ignoring good advice, and her own intuition so that bad plot points can simply happen. In Warrior cats, your Medicine cat is meant to be your confidant, and you should have close bonds with them, you should not be disagreeing with them. You should also be able to trust your deputy to manage the clan well. Through the second half of the book, she expresses nothing but doubt in every action her deputy makes, pointing out flaws and suspicions but never saying anything. Other cats (particularly Billystorm) express issues with the cat, one of which being a sever issue, is brushed off despite continual evidence of his claim. And she continues to simply allow him to make decisions, including an attack on a human (twoleg) which she disputes before allowing it, regretting it the whole time, and afterwards that she allowed this and let it build divide between the "Daylight-Warriors" and the Full time Warriors. She does not take the blame for this, simply without comment watching it split the clan WITHIN THE DAY. Leafstar makes no effort in correcting the behavior of her deputy, let alone her warriors. The book is fine in a plot sense (with a few later exceptions), however attempting to paint Leafstar as the good guy in this was a poor choice, and I feel the book would profit a great deal more pointing her as flawed leader, preferably from the aspect of another cat. Billystorm would have made better choice, although he would be slightly difficult to write due to half his time being spent out of the clan, but as he eventually grows to love the Leader, would have been clear in not painting Leafstar a villain. Echosong, who deals with Leafstar's poor decisions first hand, especially in the dealing of her apprentice, would have made a fantastic POV for the story, as she also has little conflict with the Daylight-Warriors, and would have just as easily been able to sympathize with them in fact, as she longs for the daylight-warrior Frecklepaw, to be her apprentice. About 1/3rd into the book, and covering about as much page time. is what feels like filler content on the misgivings of a group of town-cats. This story is all in all useless, and is meant to build sympathy for a group of rouges who 'join' (or more exploit) Skyclan, and remain secretive among their ranks, and lead patrols into the Twoleg Place (again, Leafstar is suspicious, but takes no initiative). I realize that due to their poor relations with Skyclan (and especially our POV, Leafstar) that there was no other way to express their point of view, but the placement, as well as content of this subplot, feel too early placed, and far more detailed than it needs to be. Without completing the book, these cats have done nothing to help Skyclan in its journey to solidify the clan, and in fact have done nothing but in force the wall between clan-mates, without their intervening chapters, there would be nothing likable about them, as within Skyclan at all, they never speak despite Sharpclaw boasting their greatness in clan. They allow themselves warrior Ceremonies (Sharpclaw's idea that Leafstar AGAIN thought was bad and disagreed with, but did it anyway) where they tainted the sanctity of the Ceremony, and then "allowed" what remained of it, despite being fully aware they had no true interest in being Clan cats at all. This however is not the last time in this book a cat is gone through a warrior ceremony unjustly. Snookthorn, immediately after being named a warrior, choses to leave the clan, despite it having previously been rather clear he had little desire to be one. Overall, the plot of a rocking clan after Firestar's departure of setup was a good concept, but this was poorly executed, making it a hard read.
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[Light Spoilers!]Boring, stagnant. There wasn't much really going on. It
was alright, like the parts about the rat battle we're exceptional, but not
beautifully written like in Bluestar's or Yellowfang's super editions.
SkyClan didn't have much going for them until Vision of Shadows
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