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A review by gabalodon
Aerie by Maria Dahvana Headley
3.0
I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as I did the first one. We tied up some loose ends, which is always good. All of the things that made the first book special were here, too. Very magical, very creative, and I think the plot was actually much stronger and more complex. I liked the addition of SWAB as a plot point - that definitely made things more complicated in interesting ways.
However, both main characters lack a lot of agency in this one. They let the plot and far more interesting side characters drag them around from plot point to plot point. There were a lot of interesting things happening on the small scale (interpersonal relationships between friends and enemies and significant others changing and rearranging) that sometimes got lost in the very dramatic, catastrophic main conflict (for example, I think both sets of parents should have had much more of a role after they seemed to vanish from the story, Dai's whole arc in this one was sidelined and abbreviated given the significance of his predetermined role in Aza's life and the parallels set up in this story, and I think it would have been good to see more members of SWAB fleshed out as people instead of being a faceless govt organization). There's one whole sidebar in a volcano that seemed very unnecessary, when we could have maybe played more with the dynamics of the Breath and Rostrae. Some messages and lessons learned along the way were then invalidated or conflict with how things go down at the climax. This book was also much darker than the first one (sometimes unnecessarily imo).
But the biggest weakness to me was how much the main characters (mostly Jason) got so completely lost in their very dramatic teenage angst, and that takes up soooo many pages, it was exhausting. Jason's actions at the beginning were insanely problematic, and his subsequent misery (soooo much drawn out misery) doesn't mean that they don't need to have a Conversation and a long road to forgiveness, if she ever forgives him at all, which I'm honestly not sure she fully should. Also, the fact that Jason's realization of how problematic his actions were was only made in the context of having his own control forcibly stripped away didn't sit right with me, and his extreme dependency on and obsession with Aza seems like a super duper red flag to me. He has no identity without her and that's Not Great. But I understand what the story was trying to do, and there's only so much you can do in 300 pages and their relationship has been a huge anchor for the story in both books.
I also feel like Jason and Dai are overdue for at least one Conversation. And I would have loved to see Eli and Heyward be the MCs this time around, I adored them.
However, both main characters lack a lot of agency in this one. They let the plot and far more interesting side characters drag them around from plot point to plot point. There were a lot of interesting things happening on the small scale (interpersonal relationships between friends and enemies and significant others changing and rearranging) that sometimes got lost in the very dramatic, catastrophic main conflict (for example, I think both sets of parents should have had much more of a role after they seemed to vanish from the story, Dai's whole arc in this one was sidelined and abbreviated given the significance of his predetermined role in Aza's life and the parallels set up in this story, and I think it would have been good to see more members of SWAB fleshed out as people instead of being a faceless govt organization). There's one whole sidebar in a volcano that seemed very unnecessary, when we could have maybe played more with the dynamics of the Breath and Rostrae. Some messages and lessons learned along the way were then invalidated or conflict with how things go down at the climax. This book was also much darker than the first one (sometimes unnecessarily imo).
But the biggest weakness to me was how much the main characters (mostly Jason) got so completely lost in their very dramatic teenage angst, and that takes up soooo many pages, it was exhausting. Jason's actions at the beginning were insanely problematic, and his subsequent misery (soooo much drawn out misery) doesn't mean that they don't need to have a Conversation and a long road to forgiveness, if she ever forgives him at all, which I'm honestly not sure she fully should. Also, the fact that Jason's realization of how problematic his actions were was only made in the context of having his own control forcibly stripped away didn't sit right with me, and his extreme dependency on and obsession with Aza seems like a super duper red flag to me. He has no identity without her and that's Not Great. But I understand what the story was trying to do, and there's only so much you can do in 300 pages and their relationship has been a huge anchor for the story in both books.
I also feel like Jason and Dai are overdue for at least one Conversation. And I would have loved to see Eli and Heyward be the MCs this time around, I adored them.