Star Rating: —> 5 StarsFirst of all, this is a translated work, originally written in Japanese, and seriously everyone needs to read it! There's great world building, but ultimately it is a VERY, VERY Character based story; I love these characters with all of my heart! Also interesting fact— They made an anime based upon this story! When I remember what its called I will update this lol.My heart is BROKEN! I am trying to keep the tears in, but it totally isn’t working. The ending was not what I

NO BIG DEAL I’VE ONLY BEEN WAITING 6 MONTHS FOR A HINT THEY’RE STILL TRANSLATING THIS!!!

Page turns like walking through a field of three foot tall grass. A tiring slog.

3.5 stars rounded upI have complicated feelings for The Beast Warrior, the highly anticipated sequel to The Beast Player which I loved. There were so many things about this sequel that were better than the first book, but a few BIG things that stunted my enjoyment too.This installment gives us more of the toda which I really appreciated. The first book in this duology was focused heavily on the Winged Beasts and I was craving more toda. I picture them a lot like Haku in Spirited Away so no wonde...

When I got to the afterword, I was surprised. I had read the Beast player, and watched Beast Player Elin when it was still on Crunchyroll (sorry anime fans I think it's no longer streaming) and while I KNEW there was a sequel, it felt mostly closed. Sure some things were open-ended, but it wasn't screaming for a sequel. I think that (and presumably lack of success) is why there is no anime sequel to Beast Player. (Come on, Ghibli!) Basically this book is "consequences: the book" (Yes, I KNOW th

OK first thing first, this takes place 10 years after the first book! I knew that going in, but if I didn’t I think I would’ve been pretty thrown off. Second, it took me a second to remember all of the supporting characters in the first book, because many do you play a role in this one in a much larger way and I had to do a bit of refresher.Now that I’ve prepared you to read this book:Oh my God I absolutely loved this! And I love this I mean I totally was heartbroken by the ending, and up to tha...

Even as a continuation from The Beast Player this book still assumed a sedate pace to get to the meat of the story. Even though it progresses slowly that doesn't mean important events aren't happening or that the writing isn't as beautiful as the first book. Even though it's now a return to a world I'm familiar with rather than newly discovering Nahoko Uehashi gives plenty of new tidbits of information about the world she's built. There was a jarring transition in the book - after Elin takes a d...

I made it 6% before I DNFed.This book is simply not for me. I found I didn't care a lick about the characters or their struggles. When I requested this, there was no description for the book on Netgalley, so I went in fully blind. be sure you read that description. This book takes place a DECADE after the previous installment. And honestly, I don't get why. You get a tiny list of all the things that happened in ten years after the ending of the last book, and I don't see how it justifies, for th...

Well. I am sad.

Part of what I adored about The Beast PlayerThe Beast Player was how rooted in music it was. Music was at the very center of the story and the worldbuilding magic that Nahoko Uehashi wove (in Cathy Hirano's translation, as in this book). Music is central to my life as well; I'm a musician in my free time and try to live as musical a life as possible. I wasn't sure how any sequel could do better than that. And then The Beast Warrior decided to place biology/biochemistry - my literal PhD subject -...

Something about this series made it become a piece of me from the very first chapter of The Beast Player, & now that it’s over I feel both heartbroken & like I’ve found a missing piece of myself. Connections like the one I feel for Elin & Leelan’s story don’t happen very often & I know this series will be special to me for the rest of my life. Going in to The Beast Warrior I was nervous that it wouldn’t live up to book one & that the ending would let me down completely, but all 640 pages were pe...

This is a more stately, reflective creature than its predecessor, The Beast Player; which I believe was originally conceived of as a standalone, but it works very nicely to my mind, and it's always refreshing when a book grows in maturity alongside its main character (Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet being a glorious example of this). All too often female characters in fantasy still disappear or simply get killed off after marrying and having children, so it was fantastic to see how E...

This was a long winded but ultimately satisfying conclusion to the first book. It takes a long time to get to where its' going and the ultimate messages about humans' responsibilities to animals and the consequences of interfering with the natural order of the world are made extremely clear. This didn't hold my interest as strongly as the first, largely because I felt there were too many side characters that didn't add much to the story overall, other than making the politics more complex than n...

The first book is one you can read and never read this book. It was made as a complete story. This story however expands the lore of the beasts and touda in the only way it can. It concludes in the only way war can. It retells the tale of the catastrophe that affected the Afon Noah, this time with Elin in the center of it.Over all as like the first book, it has excellent storytelling and world building. It's one of those series I'd say is a "must read" and "instant classic". Though because it's

I let a random choice roulette choose the last book needed to complete my yearly book goal for 2020 and it landed on the Beast Warrior, which was a perfect way to mark it as complete. ───────────────────I don’t even know where to start with this book, the anime series was completely covered in the first two books and I came into this one not sure what to expect as the story was, to my knowledge, completed. Seemingly it was, but Uehashi Nahoko-sensei decided to give Erin a proper conclusion becau...

I'm not sure I have much to say about this book other than it took me an exceptionally long time to get through. It wasn't necessarily bad, but I did not find myself wanting to pick it up either. The parts I liked about it were glossed over, and the parts that were boring went on for pages and pages. There were some good discussions about the price of war, but it didn't hit very hard since the aforementioned 'war' didn't really even happen until the last 40 pages or so. I was definitely not sold...

Perfection ❤️

That ending!! My heart! Beautiful writing just like the first book.

A bit of a let-down, truth be told... The Beast Player was a finished story, according to the author, and it wasn't until later that she was asked "but what's next for Erin?" I feel like there shouldn't have been any 'next', not like this. Book #3 had a nice build-up, but book #4 turned out to be very anticlimactic. It's not even that it took a different turn from the previous books, but that it made the whole series - which I loved up until the last book - unsatisfying. I still think the writin...

This book was crazy good. It picks years later after the end of the first book and I just loved getting back to this world. The animal human relationships in this were amazing and I just loved the world and the creatures. I really hope this one gets picked up as a movie or something because it would be amazing. The characters were great as well. Everything worked so well in this one.