Content warning: Death of animals, death of parents, war


I read the first book over two years ago I think? So I barely remember anything that happened, except that the ending was very unsatisfying. So when I found out that a sequel came out, I decided to read it, hoping for a better resolution, which I ended up getting. But in order to get to that better ending, I had to slog through so many pages of dead baby animals, Peter's toxic masculinity and overall extremely unhealthy mindset, and Peter's "penance", which consisted of him imagining in great detail, over and over, about how he should have killed his former pet fox, Pax, when Pax was a baby.

This book is surprisingly dark for a middle grade book. The vast majority of the book is quite grim and

Spoiler

the scene where Peter almost shot Pax's daughter terrified and traumatized me although he fortunately didn't end up killing her.

The ending was a lot more wholesome than the rest of the book though, fortunately.

My favorite parts were the scenes with Pax and his daughter because they were so wholesome together and there was some adorable dialogue. The chapters in Pax's POV were overall superior; I dreaded Peter's POV so much.

Another problem I had was that I didn't understand anything about the war at all. Who was fighting whom? Over what? Why? What was happening. This random war is just thrown in with no explanation (unless there was an explanation in the first book that I don't remember.)

Anyway, I was going to give this book 3 stars for most of the book, but I'm going to be nice and give it 3.5 stars, rounded up, because of the ending and overall the plot wasn't bad.