The Siege (Guardians of Ga'Hoole, #4) by Kathryn Lasky

The Siege by Kathryn Lasky

My rating: ★★★☆☆

This series is so strange to me. As I said in my previous reviews, I'm really bothered by all the discrimination on the part of the protagonists and the plot's inherent hypocrisy. On the other hand, there are nuggets of awesome tucked in here and there.

For example, I felt the sudden creation of the Band was something of a cop-out because there wasn't really much building of the comradarie; the four owls were suddenly friends for life, no questions asked. But the Chaw of Chaws? It took the Band's stated relationship and build upon it to get a killer team with a solid friendship as backbone. I felt like I was watching the Harry Potter kids become a family again. I love well-developed teams of characters, and the Chaw of Chaws fit the bill perfectly.

But there's just so much nonsense elsewhere that the awesome bits are lost in the sea of bullshit. It is so disappointing to me that the relationship dynamic between Soren, Gylfie, Twilight, Digger, Otulissa, Ruby, Martin, Eglantine, Primrose, and Ezylryb got bogged down by all the bungled racism, the juvenile handling of mature themes, and the wishy-washy world-building.