Book #69 of 2024: Tiger Honor (Thousand Worlds Novel book 2)
Tiger Honor by Yoon Ha Lee.
Quick synopsis: A 13 year old teen/tiger spirit is accepted into Space Force. They have the worst first day of work ever experienced in the entire history of the universe.
Brief opinion: Not anywhere near as good as book 1, but not bad. It felt a lot more like it was written for young readers than the first one did.
Plot: Sebin, a nonbinary tiger spirit teenager, wants nothing more in life than to join Space Force like his Uncle Hwan, a captain a battle cruiser (and villain of book 1). Happily they get an acceptance letter and off they goes to their assigned port to meet their assigned ship, the Haetae.
For those unable to see spoiler tags, skip the next paragraph.
Sebin's very first day, an emergency happens, leading to their Uncle Hwan hiding himself and some allies onto the Haetae. Through the whole of that day, Sebin meets Min (the fox spirit/main character of book 1), [Spoiler]becomes her enemy, becomes her ally, joins their uncle in taking over the ship, betrays the uncle and eventually with the help of three other 13 year olds, defeats him. End spoiler. All in one day.
All of the happenings behind the spoiler tag took a long time, I hadn't realized the whole book took place in one day until a character said it later.
In the end, Sebin learns what they should be loyal to.
Writing/editing: Not as perfect as book 1. There were a couple minor editing issues (dialogue tags doubled up multiple times, an incorrect comma or two). At one point a nonbinary character got a male pronoun. [I had to fix my whole review, I used male pronouns for Sebin through this whole post, so I understand that error!]
There was also a story-editing issue (early in the book, Sebin used lipreading and explained to the reader how they knew how to do it, then in the second half of the book they wasn't able to lipread and said their family really should have taught them the skill).
None of those were a big deal, though the lipreading one did make me pause in reading.
Also, I'm sure in the first book it was stated that tiger spirits serving in Space Force were rare because they couldn't control their rage. Every tiger spirit in this book seemed like a normal person.
I really, really, really hated the use of "auncle" (gender neutral aunt/uncle-level family member). The author didn't make the word up, but I think this was the first time I've seen it in a book. It set my teeth on edge every time it was used.
What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: That is one beautiful cover!
In the first book and this one, I love how the tiger and fox spirit people can smell emotions on other people. Such a cool animal character trait!
The characters in general didn't work for me in this one. There was a 13 year old hacker who could get through any and every security system on the newest, most advanced ship in Space Force. There was a young teenage girl who kept dropping mention that she draws a webcomic (does the internet even exist in this world? Or some version of it also nicknamed the web?).
Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4 stars / liked. If I had a 3/4 icon, I might have given it 3 and three-quarters stars (closer to liked than to okay). Unfortunately the story felt like it was for a younger audience, unlike the first book which was great for adult readers as well.