Avatar: The Last Airbender is my favourite cartoon TV series, and it’s really tough to imagine a cartoon ever overtaking it. I also liked the first season of the live-action adaptation quite a bit, and I know this puts me in the minority, but I also saw some real beauty in the 2010 movie. Suffice it to say, I knew a little bit about Kyoshi already. But the world of Avatar is so established, so imaginative, so relevant to our world in its history, cultures and politics, that I am very happy it is branching out with books about the previous Avatars like this one. Though I do wish it were a little better. At the same time, this book is critically acclaimed, so maybe it’s a me-not-you situation.
Avatar Kyoshi, an Earth Kingdom avatar who was two generations before Aang, was apparently a notable one. There’s a place called Kyoshi Island, where there are statues and legends of her everywhere, and even more impressive, even 200 years after her time, there are Kyoshi Warriors with her same dress, fans, and makeup. They are mighty and stand for justice just like her. So we know Aang’s story quite well. What about hers? What kind of adventures did she have? How did the world react when she was the new Avatar after her predecessor, Water Tribe’s Avatar Kuruk, died at the young age of 33?
Well, there’s two books now out, this one and The Shadow of Kyoshi. This one explores where Kyoshi first came from as a kid, and how there was actually a different person who was presumed to be the one. I could talk about what happens when the tides turn, and Kyoshi has to digest this news, and where she ends up going and what happens…but I’d rather not give away too much. I already have quite a bit, and I went into the book blind, and the less you know, the better.
The world of the Avatar is one of those very rare works where you want to sit back and imagine where you would be and what you’d be doing. And having a book that really respects the history and sophistication of the world and the sometimes-funny-but-somehow-works animals that are a combination of our animals like hog monkeys and badger moles and polar bear dogs is quite the treat. And the world has some completely original works like flying bisons and shirshus. We pick up kind of quickly that F. C. Yee and co-writer Michael Dante DiMartino care about and understand this world. No surprise, since DiMartino was co-creator of the show.
When it comes to specifics about The Rise of Kyoshi, I’ll say the positive stuff first. It doesn’t quite go the angle I expected, and the angle I expected was an onslaught, since Kyoshi is so legendarily powerful. But it’s more humble than I thought, which is a great reminder that sometimes people aren’t always what they seem. I love Kyoshi’s backstory of living in poverty and how she came upon her legendary suit, fans and makeup. I like the friends she makes and I’m interested to see what they do in the sequel. Even if Rangi and I would never be friends, as she’s snooty and more impulsive than she would care to admit, I liked her and Kyoshi together. Some of these characters are from Kuruk’s time, and now I’m interested in if there will be a book about him too.
There are sadly a few things that drag the book down, however. For starters, there’s a character that does something a little too unbelievably demented. I didn’t buy the reason he went rogue. It makes you unable to imagine him with any friends, and he does have friends. When this character shift happens, we sometimes jump to him as the book’s antagonist to see what he’s plotting…and the story just hits the brakes. Whenever the book is not centred on Kyoshi, the magic is missing. I think I wouldn’t have minded the shifts if there was less detail to everything. Next time, less on the architecture and more on the emotions. The book is 420 pages, and it could’ve cut about 70 of them. I did still enjoy enough of the book to give it a passing grade, but by the time I was nearing the end, I was looking forward to reading something else. Maybe it would’ve benefitted to have Kyoshi’s point of view in first-person instead of third.
Also, if I wasn’t familiar with the world of the Avatar, its easter eggs wouldn’t have meant anything to me, and I probably would’ve given this either a star or half a star lower. So in the end, I would recommend The Rise of Kyoshi if you are a big Avatar fan (like a lot of people are) and a fan of fantasy. I do respect the book for clearly caring about the world created when The Last Airbender launched almost 20 years ago. But I would’ve liked it a lot more if it didn’t try so hard to resemble a history textbook.
My grade: 3 stars out of 5
William J. McGinn 
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