I had high hopes given the cult that surrounds this book, but it was shockingly mundane when all was said and done. I kept expecting plot twists or unexpected lessons about honor and tough love, but no. Instead, everything plays out exactly as expected. The bad guys are the bad guys for very simple reasons. The characters who are good are just that, with no nuance or moments where they make mistakes. When there are massive things at stake, main characters often get distracted to the detriment of the lives of those around them. I didn't think my expectations were unreasonably high either--when it comes to children's media you can get books that are fairly complex, but this was just mediocre. Functionally harmless for kids, I guess, but nowhere near the complexity that people tout it for.

I think it would have helped to have more fantasy elements; I mean, the cats are already talking to one another and expressing complex thoughts, and clans have "medicine cats" that gather herbs for healing, staving off starvation, and whatever else. They're not wild animals so much as a series of tribes with a shared mythos, so the explicit existence of magic wouldn't be that odd. Maybe future installments use it, but so far this was a rough start.