There are some other sideplots, but the MAIN goal seemed to be Byx finding other dairnes. (Granted, I'm 34 - clearly not the target audience for this. I just felt like the books are too long and the plot is not that big to keep my attention for a whole big series.

Now that I look it up, its labeled as 'an epic middle grade animal fantasy series'. Maybe this is stupid of me (considering who the author is) but I guess I didn't realize this was going to be a long series. I really liked the first book in this series so I was really excited to read this one. I'm more interested in seeing the actual underdogs do it themselves rather than follow a human with a magic sword and a prophecy because the latter has been played out so many times before. I like Khara fine enough, but I really like Byx, Gambler, and Tobble more. Khara is of the species (humankind) that is desolating most of the other species of intelligent beings, and now the story has started to shift to Khara's epic adventure. My one complaint would be that it seemed like Byx's story is being overshadowed a bit by Khara's story which isn't what I wanted. The characters relationships grow much stronger, and overall, I enjoyed Byx's story in this. I enjoyed the new characters in this and that Byx was forced to step out as a leader herself, instead of always being comfortable as a follower. Partially related, I thought Katherine Applegate did some clever things with expectations not always meeting with what reality has in store. I really liked how many underdog moments there were in this. I really liked how dedicated the group of characters is to helping Byx as she tries to find others of her species. There was a lot about this installment I really liked.

The first Chapter by Kerry Girling