okkk i have just finished thunder and you know what? i loved it! i loved the book. per usual im a fan of the travels away from the clan boundaries, towards a goal, destined to return with character bonding along the way. i thought (as most critiques go) the actual scenes with frostpaw and nightheart bonding could have been written better, or we could have just seen more trust being built between the two but overall, i loved it!
i really liked the park cats, just thought they were super fun and necessary, with all of the repetitive plot lines within warriors, they really felt like a refreshing touch of finding the value in mental processing and fun/play. it was a surprising twist to involve them and i think it really paid off.
i also love the development of nightheart’s character. exceptionally sopping wet whiny at the beginning with just a furnace of teen angst, who develops into a good and caring dude overall without some kind of external tragedy. good on him.
i loved sunbeam’s trials, at least the first two. and i loved her characterization throughout them as she starts to find her place within the clan. i’ve never read the series with cherryfall so this is my first introduction to the character and while i see a lot of folks find her sympathetic, she just gives off darkstripe vibes to me. yucky. but i did like the push and pull of her relationship with sunbeam.
it does feel weird to me that the authors still present thunderclan as the “protagonist” clan after all this time writing the series, but i guess it’s good at least for presenting simple narrative tropes in children’s literature? idk if that’s really it though, just because there’s been many complex plot lines throughout the series so not sure about that decision.
either way i’m having fun! really liking a starless clan so far and im excited for april 2nd when the audiobook of wind drops!