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A review by xavia
Darkwing by Kenneth Oppel
3.0
We read this book for book club.
I'm going to try to go a bit easier on this book, because at the end of the day, I don't think it was for me. I have a hard time reading about animals dying, and while I tried to steal myself for a world in which there are no animals only people, I knew I would be confronted with some animal death.
I just didn't realize how much of it would be babies/younglings, and how much it would legitimately feel like murder.
I know that this is the animal kingdom, and that all living things need to eat, but it is presented to us as "beasts do not eat other beasts" and ones that do are shunned from even their own packs. So when it happens, it feels like cannibalistic murder. I know it shouldn't, but it does. So if that is not something you are comfortable with, this is not the book for you.
That being said, this book was very well written. Even though I had a lot of problems with the subject matter on a personal level, outside of the murder it was rather interesting to see Dusk realize his differences and how they make him special and how they can be used to help his family. I appreciated that all the beasts and birds they met felt like they had distinct personalities, and weren't just carbon copies of each other. Even the other not-bats felt like they had distinct personalities and ideas, which was cool.
Seeing the way the beasts interacted with each other was also kind of interesting, and seeing how they interacted with the saurians and the birds was also interesting, though there weren't really any characters in this book I would say I liked.
All in all, this book wasn't for me, but it was interesting. I can see why other people like it, and why other books in the series have done so well. I just know myself as a person, and if this hadn't been a book club book I would have never picked it up, or I would have DNF'd it after only a couple of chapters.
I'm going to try to go a bit easier on this book, because at the end of the day, I don't think it was for me. I have a hard time reading about animals dying, and while I tried to steal myself for a world in which there are no animals only people, I knew I would be confronted with some animal death.
I just didn't realize how much of it would be babies/younglings, and how much it would legitimately feel like murder.
I know that this is the animal kingdom, and that all living things need to eat, but it is presented to us as "beasts do not eat other beasts" and ones that do are shunned from even their own packs. So when it happens, it feels like cannibalistic murder. I know it shouldn't, but it does. So if that is not something you are comfortable with, this is not the book for you.
That being said, this book was very well written. Even though I had a lot of problems with the subject matter on a personal level, outside of the murder it was rather interesting to see Dusk realize his differences and how they make him special and how they can be used to help his family. I appreciated that all the beasts and birds they met felt like they had distinct personalities, and weren't just carbon copies of each other. Even the other not-bats felt like they had distinct personalities and ideas, which was cool.
Seeing the way the beasts interacted with each other was also kind of interesting, and seeing how they interacted with the saurians and the birds was also interesting, though there weren't really any characters in this book I would say I liked.
All in all, this book wasn't for me, but it was interesting. I can see why other people like it, and why other books in the series have done so well. I just know myself as a person, and if this hadn't been a book club book I would have never picked it up, or I would have DNF'd it after only a couple of chapters.