BRÏN

I was really into this book for the first 450 pages. Brïn felt like a wonderful place, a place I'd love to see with its magic so interwoven into nature. Juno and Kamika especially were great characters and I was captured by their relationship from beginning to end. I loved the wind elemnt in this, it was an approach I had not seen yet. And as I could never relate to wind/air before (in ATLA for example), I really enjoyed this new perspective.

But then the ending and the twist came: Akko and Jack are the same person, and they have a dissociative identity disorder. And usually that would be great (representation is great), except that Jack is a serial killer. And if all representation of a group in media makes them out to be the evils and the serial killers, representation really is not that great anymore. Then it becomes something that only creates stigma and increases stereotypes. And that made it honestly hurtful to read the end.

I really want to be able to like this. But in the end, I will be walking away from this with mostly negative feelings, regardless of how much I enjoyed most parts of the journey.