Reviews

It took me a long time to post this review because it ended up being so long, I needed time away from it to edit. I have a lot to say and I promise this is the truncated version.

I really don't give one-star reviews but it's not often that I finish a book that has absolutely nothing that I enjoyed. I knew I wasn't going to be able to help but compare it to FC Yee's Avatar books (which I adore and consider the gold standard for IP books) but I tried to go into this book with an open mind. Even though the book kept falling short of the standard that FC Yee set, I kept trying to give this book the benefit of the doubt but it gave me nothing to work with. Even without comparing this book to FC Yee's Avatar books, it's just not good. Not only is it a disappointing entry in the Avatarverse and gives almost nothing new for fans to latch onto: it's bland, shallow, and frankly... a little politically concerning.

First, the non-spoilery bits. Right off the bat, I struggled getting through the prologue. Even for YA, the writing feels juvenile and heavyhanded... frankly, it reads more like middle grade. It is determined to tell you every single emotion and thought that the characters are feeling at any given moment with no finesse. The opening paragraph made me close the book multiple times because I kept getting secondhand embarrassment reading it. The writing never really gets better; it's annoyingly, insultingly didactic and moralizing, made even worse when you disagree with our heroes (but we'll get into that later).

Not only was the writing poor, or maybe because of it, but nearly every major character's characterization felt all over the place and every single relationship, from Roku and Sozin's friendship to the godforsaken romances, was underdeveloped and shallow. I was expecting to, at the very least, be able to wring some enjoyment out of Roku and Sozin's doomed friendship or even Roku and Gyatso's budding companionship but... there was nothing interesting to latch onto. Every decision and every interaction felt so forced, like plot beats that had to be hit rather than a natural consequence of who the characters were and, because of this, the entire plot felt messy and contrived.

Quality of writing aside, it’s just generally a poor entry into the Avatarverse. I won’t harp too much on FC Yee but I call him the gold standard for a reason. He brought depth to this world's lore in a way that no other Avatar writer (including on TLOK and the graphic novels) has done and thought deeply about how the various Avatar eras shaped the politics of the world. His love for the world was evident in every word; it’s hard to follow and I didn’t expect Ribay to match it.

However, the difference is just too stark to not point out. Ribay's understanding of the world was so shallow and I constantly felt like I was having the Avatar wiki recited to me. The oftentimes cheeky references to the show or FC Yee's books just made me wish I was watching/reading them instead. I could not tell you what Ribay brought to the world of Avatar, other than sprinkling it with nods to Filipino culture. Even more egregious, at one point it seemed like he'd outright contradicted canon: apparently Sozin is not homophobic! His sister is gay AND he hired her ex-girlfriend. I truly can't tell whether or not Ribay knew that Sozin instituted state-sanctioned homophobia during his reign or if the implication here is that he did it to screw over both his sister and Dalisay (because he's evil). If the latter, it's interesting! A tasty morsel of characterization that unfortunately is never expanded on. A missed opportunity. One of many that I won’t get into because this review is way too long as it is and is more subjective and personal taste anyways.

But this brings me to my biggest problem with this book.

The central conflict revolves around an isolated island with a mysterious power, the indigenous people who live on it, and the people (Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom) who want to claim and use the island's power. The clan leader, Ulo, orders the death of any outsider that steps foot on the island, justifies this with stories of outsiders destroying the other clans that used to live on the island, and punishes dissenters. We spend a mind-numbing amount of time moralizing about how it's wrong to kill outsiders who are 'only trespassing'.

The real life implications of this are concerning to me. I understand that ATLA has established a 'killing people, even in the name of justice, is not good' moral. Whatever. I think it's coward shit but it's a kid's franchise and hey, FC Yee made it work. But putting it specifically in this context, when you’re modelling the island after pre-colonial Philippines... it leaves a bad taste in my mouth! Even with the caveat in the book that resistance is fine—as long as it’s not pre-emptive—, a bad faith interpretation of this makes it read like the author thinks that Lapulapu should’ve accepted Ferdinand Magellan’s offer of ‘friendship’ or reasoned with him instead of killing him. My more generous interpretation is that it's either shortsided on the author's part and has no analogue to actual Philippine history or that this was intended to be commentary on martial law under Marcos— but I'm only passingly familiar with Philippine history and I'll leave this to folks who are more familiar with it. Preferably folks living in the Philippines.

But even if you decide to overlook the Philippines-inspired setting... there are still isolated indigenous peoples right now, in the real world, who wish to remain isolated and have been known to kill outsiders. Even though the book does believe in a people's right to self-determination... it sure is judgemental about it if it involves killing people, even if it delays/prevents colonization. My personal feelings about the validity of violent resistance aside... Ribay didn't need to make this the story. He didn't need to make a story about Avatar Roku (who famously failed to prevent a genocide) into one about how violent resistance makes you just as bad as the colonizer. My best faith approach to this is that he wanted a story that foreshadows Roku's biggest failure on a smaller scale especially because, in killing Ulo to defend Sozin, the island does fall into the hands of the Fire Nation. But even still, the implication seems to be that Roku was wrong for killing Ulo, not that Ulo was perhaps at least a little justified nor that Roku was incorrect for interfering with the island’s affairs, especially when we have Malaya herself, one of the members of the Lambak clan, claiming that Sozin was just as bad as Ulo.

(Which, sidebar, was so baffling to me because not only did the book fail to convince me that Ulo was wrong, Sozin hadn't actually... done anything yet? She was going to kill him off of pure vibes which was made even more bizarre because of her decision NOT to kill the people who actually killed people and destroyed her village.)

It brings me no joy to dislike this book as much as I did. I want nothing more than for Asian diaspora authors to succeed, especially when writing for an IP based off of Asian culture but created by white creators. However, those of us in the diaspora need to be cognizant of the way we write about colonialism and the history of the lands we come from, even when it’s cloaked in metaphor. I don’t know how many of the issues in this book can be attributed to deadlines or editing, but this book was just massively disappointing on so many levels. I still might read the next book, just to see if any of it gets better but I do not feel optimistic.