High three stars. I would say this book is a bit worse than the first one, but still holds up surprisingly well.
Story-wise, we have focus on things aside from just walking, which is a nice change of pace. The end of the book deals with more inter-bear relationships and drama in one setting, which kept the story fresh and finally stopped the traveling issue book 1 suffered from.
Unfortunately, I do think the characters were weaker in this book. None of them were bad, but in my opinion none of them were quite as well-written as in the last book.
Kallik is still pretty basic, though I do think her wanting to join the others at the end makes sense. She doesn’t really change in this book, which is fine, but that does mean I have almost nothing to say on her.
I think Lusa was the strongest this book. Once again, her naivety makes her endearing, and her motivations are so clear that it doesn’t feel repetitive when she does ‘typical main character’ things. (Like saving people in trouble, always being morally right, feeling like they ‘belong’ somewhere, being super loyal, etc.) I think Lusa was written very well, and she was definitely my favorite this book.
Toklo has some good moments this book, too. His scenes with Ujurak and later on Pawprint Island kept him from feeling one-dimensional, which is what I was really worried about this book. Even his issues with swimming were handled very well. My only issue with Toklo was that when he wasn’t actively being developed, he kind of took a backseat role. Towards the end this was less noticeable, though, so I don’t even think that’s a big issue.
Like Kallik, Ujurak also didn’t change much in this one, but again I don’t mind it. I think him and Kallik staying static while the other two got more focus was a good decision. Sometimes having every character changing all the time can be overwhelming. That said, I do wish we knew where he went while Toklo was on Pawprint Island. He just kind of disappears, so his reappearance feels very much like plot convenience. Aside from that, I hope we get interactions between him, Kallik, and Taqqiq. Right now he has two distinct relationships- one with Toklo and one with Lusa- and I’m hoping that his relationships with the white bears don’t feel the same as either of the others. I hope that each friendship will feel unique so the characters can bounce off each other and keep an interesting dynamic while, inevitably, walking. It’ll also give Ujurak a bit more to do and a bit more, you know, character. He’s not boring by any means, but he does feel unchallenged if that makes sense. I’m not sure how to explain it, but to me it seems like he hasn’t met any hard to overcome challenges so far. I’d like to see him struggle with something, and I can’t remember if he does from my last read-through.
Taqqiq doesn’t do much this book, but I do think his personality change is believable given the time skip from when we last saw him in book 1. That being said, his subsequent flip back felt a bit clunky. I don’t think it was bad, I just feel like it was paced off or written weirdly. I don’t know; something was off about it.
Well, half of this review turned into “what I want to happen next book”, and the rest of my comments were actually pretty positive, too. . . Maybe I like this book more than I thought.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with my reread of Seekers so far; hopefully book 3 keeps up the streak!