Warriors: Bramblestar's Storm

*Warning: The following post contains spoilers. You have been warned.*

So I recently (well, sort of recently) finished Bramblestar's Storm, the latest in the (long, long) line of Warriors books. While it certainly wasn't my favorite in the Warriors series, it was pretty good overall, though I had a few small problems and one major bone to pick with the ending.

So here we go with the review.

***

Bramblestar's Storm: The Good

• The plot was good. Warriors has always been a survival story--that's pretty much the baseline setting--but the titular storm in this book brought the 'survival' part to a whole new level. Much of the book dealt with the cats being forced to find a new (temporary) home, deal with loss of territory, etc. 
• I appreciated the new characters. For one thing, they were all well-defined, with personalities different enough that I could easily tell them apart. Frankie/Stormpaw, in particular, was a favorite of mine. 
• The aftermath of the battle in The Last Hope was shown and discussed. I was disappointed that Hazeltail got killed off (she was one of my favorite background characters), but I did appreciate the follow-up. 

Bramblestar's Storm: The Bad

• The 'prophecy' Cloudstar gave to Firestar (who then gave it to Bramblestar) was totally useless. Because there was a prophecy involved, I kept expecting a boss-level villain to pop out at the end to be fought. The actual answer to the prophecy--Bramblestar's bond with his sister remaining strong despite Clan differences--was an issue that had already been discussed. Frankly, it was anti-climactic and made the prophecy seem needlessly confusing, vague, and distinctly unhelpful. 
• I'm not sure what the writers intended for the Bramblestar/Squirrelflight/Jessy love-triangle, but whatever it was, they didn't do it right. I'm not a fan of love triangles in general, but there is a right way to do them. The triangle in this book seemed vague and oddly paced. The writers spent a lot of time setting up Jessy's involvement in the Clan. Then Bramblestar went on a few quasi-romantic dinner dates walks with Jessy... and then he decided that he wasn't in love with her after all; he wanted to be with Squirrelflight? Huh? When did you ever say you were in love with Jessy in the first place? And hadn't you made up with Squirrelflight already, when you made her your deputy at the end of The Last Hope?
  Like I said. Confusing. 
• This is probably the biggest spoiler of them all, so skip this whole point if you don't want to hear it.
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  Alright, so the reveal at the very end that Squirrelflight really can have kits?
  I hated that.
  If you want a happy couple with a romantic happy ending, there are plenty of those to go around in Warriors. In my opinion, it was interesting and different to have a character who was barren. I was perfectly ready and willing to see Squirrelflight as a happy grandmother with no kittens of her own, who helped raise her adopted grandkits and nieces and nephews and such. Why do we need to bend and rewrite things that have already happened, just so we can have another happy ending?
  And it goes beyond that.
  What are you trying to say here, author? That no matter how much you're in love, it's not a real marriage unless you have kids? I'm sure that's not what was intended, but it kind of came across that way. Because even though there are hundreds of mother characters in Warriors, we couldn't let Squirrelflight represent those who are barren.
  That disappoints me. 

***

Bramblestar's Storm: The Conclusion

Well, I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, It was pretty enjoyable in general. It was definitely better than Yellowfang's Secret, a previous Warriors Super Edition. I even enjoyed it more than Tallstar's Revenge, the Super Edition before this. But it wasn't the best Warriors book ever, and the aforementioned 'twist' at the end left a bad taste in my mouth. So I'm giving this one  three stars out of five:

***

And that concludes this review! 

My Halloween post is coming... soon... so stay tuned! Bye now!