Hawkwing's Journey Review

In obvious set-up for the new series, the Erins have given us a third SkyClan themed Super Edition, but this time things aren’t looking good for the fifth Clan. We jump into the story as Hawkpaw, soon to be Hawkwing, an ambitious young cat who loses his confidence after an early life tragedy. I was really glad to have another SkyClan book as they are a favourite Clan of mine, though I wasn’t quite sure about the premise for the book, especially since it had been hinted In The Apprentice’s Quest that SkyClan was coming into the main story. I was not disappointed in my worries.

What was good

I think Hawkwing’s inner thoughts were quite well written. In more recent books this isn’t something that you always get but in this case I think it was well done. He was more understandable than most characters, which I appreciated. Seeing as SkyClan is going to turn up in the new series, most likely the next book, so the existence of this book is important or we wouldn’t really understand anything that was going on. The idea for this book was good, the execution is a different story. It’s also good that we now know who Twigpaw and Violetpaw’s parents are.

What was ‘meh’

The rushed and sloppy writing made it hard to enjoy the good bits and feel sad at the tragic bits. A lot of important moments were ruined by terrible choices by the authors. I can’t say I’m impressed by the quality of this book, but the story was good enough for me to not hate it.

What was bad

SO many characters died in this book. Probably one, maybe more, on average per chapter. The book was WAY to heavy and too much important stuff was happening too quickly. I felt a bit betrayed by the Erins to be honest. Its normal to brace yourself when reading the Warriors books for the imminent deaths of your favourite characters, but everything just went to shit in Hawkwing’s Journey. This book was also just tragic. By the end of it I felt like crying. Cats like Leafstar and Hawkwing seemed to have been targeted as the main focus points of the ‘tragedy’ and it broke mt heart.

Overall verdict

I can’t say I liked this book for any reason except it being a Warriors book. So yeah, not that great. I think the Erins need to calm down a bit and focus on writing even slightly better stuff than just getting the books out ASAP. I see a lot of people talking about how they love it because it was so emotional. Yeah it was emotional but it was also rushed and poorly written. I’m disappointed.

Stats

Favourite character: I didn’t really like any of the characters that much

Least favourite character: No specific cat, but I was really annoyed at some particular cats by the end of it for the bad decisions they made. I hated Darktail too. This is all his fault. Also Leafstar get some sense after Sol how can you not see how evil he is???

Characters killed (and are confirmed dead): 12

Characters missing (most suspected dead): 8

Cats who left the Clan: 5-8 (uncertain)