I've read: Forest of Secrets
Last night I finished reading the third book in "The prophecies begin" arc from Warriors (sometimes referred as Warrior Cats too): Forest of Secrets.
I won't lie, I was about to completely skip these books due to them being tagged as "children's fantasy novels", but oh boy, what would I have missed.
I'm not gonna linger on the whole narrative arc since I'll prepare a post after finishing the last book, and will probably post about the first two books too - to be transparent, I hadn't posted about them yet because at the beginning I was afraid I wouldn't like them, and later on because I practically binged them. I guess I can leave you with this.
As mentioned above, Forest of Secrets is the third book in The propechies begin arc and in this book many stories that started in the previous books come to an end, leaving you with a sigh of relief, even though the book ends with a not-so-great news (but a great cliffhanger, of course). In fact, the next book is title Rising Storm (imagine a proper Milhouse winking GIF here) and I can't wait to read it.
About this book I specifically enjoyed the growth of the main characters as they faced the moral dilemma that we often face while growing up. The author - keep in mind that Erin Hunter is a pen name used by several authors, I'm talking about Cherith Baldry in this occasion - did a marvelous job picking up / remembering the trials of growing up and magistrally put them in the book.
A fun fact:
Victoria Holmes, another author under the pen name "Erin Hunter" said that this book was the turning point for her too, here's an extract from her interview:
Q: And speaking of the WARRIORS juggernaut, you were the brainchild and editor of this enormously popular series written by Erin Hunter. Have you been surprised by the devoted following it’s generated?
VH: When I started work on Into the Wild, I had only been an editor for a few months and it just felt like a rather complex and unwieldy feral cat fantasy that would bring some sort of badge of honor if I got to the end of the first manuscript. I have never been a fan of fantasy fiction or stories about animals (even though I was brought up on a farm and love, love, love all four-legged furry creatures), so while I gave the script my all, I never imagined it would conquer the world. I can clearly remember the point when I thought, “Hang on, this is turning into something special.” It was when I came up with the back story for Book Three: Forest of Secrets, in which Bluestar had given up her kits to RiverClan in order to become deputy of ThunderClan. I recall sitting at my keyboard, tapping away to unpeel the layers of emotion that must have led to her momentous decision, and suddenly realizing how real and vital the Clans’ world had become to me. From then on, the storylines seemed almost to write themselves as the characters played out their dramas on their wooded stage, and I guess I figured that if the action excited me then it would probably excite a fair few other people as well. And of course I have the honor of working with two incredibly talented writers in Kate and Cherith. They make editing each script a joy, and we share a lot of laughs and moments of inspiration before each book is put to bed. They each write so exquisitely that my cheeks turn green with envy, and I’m thrilled that so many readers appreciate them too. But I never imagined we’d beat Harry Potter one day!
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