Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Book Review: Avatar the Last Airbender: Smoke & Shadow Part 3

Smoke and Shadow Part 3
by  Gene Luen Yang (author), Gurihiru (illustrator)
Date Read:  4/20/16
Rating: ★ ★ 
★ ★ 

This graphic novel picks right up where the previous one left off. As the group discovers that Azula is the head of the Kemurikage, Zuko goes to drastic measures to try to find the children and his crazy sister.  Azula’s plan is not revealed until the very end of the story, and I say, she’s still pretty crazy and evil!  She looked a little off to me in the illustrations though – I kept thinking it was her eyes, they seemed more gold that I remembered. As I look at pictures from the TV series, he eyes weren’t quite that gold, but her eyes also weren’t so open – she kind of always had a scowl. And her pupils in the comic are smaller - so it may just be her crazy eyes that make her look different.

I love Zuko and Aang’s relationship. There is mutual respect there but they tend to have different methods of obtaining the same goal. I thought this story did it better than some of the previous ones. They stayed on the same side this time rather than actually fighting with each other.

I love having Suki in the story – and I just want to know what happens with Suki and Sokka! The suspense is killing me – Korra acted like he probably didn’t marry her. Ugh.  While Sokka and Katara were absent from this storyline, I really enjoyed having Mai, Ty-Lee, and Suki in it.

I also appreciated Mai’s reaction to her father. After the events of this story, she showed a very a mature response to everything that had happened. It helped remind us that the characters are in fact growing up.

I’m looking forward to what will happen in the next series of stories – North and South, in which Sokka and Katara will return --- but will it address more of Azula’s story? Or will we have to continue to wait?

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