The Hive Queen (Wings of Fire) (12)

My son has enjoyed all the Wings of Fire books until now. This book has been a huge disappointment with the author writing in a relationship between two female dragons. Just unnecessary especially 11 books into the series. We are done with Wings of Fire.

This book series was amazing, until book 13. It introduced homosexuality- that is NOT something we expected, nor wished to discuss at this time for my child. It was quite disturbing and has soured her on reading. 😢

But as for an actual review:

Reading from Cricket's perspective was amazing and, at times, so sad. This series continues to blow me away with the relevance to kids, teens, and even adults' lives. Cricket informs us right off the bat that her parents can't stand her and that her mother left the family to go "pursue her dreams." So many people I know have dealt with similar issues, and it's sad and hard to see. Cricket is still dealing with this, even though she's never liked her mother. Cricket's character grows and learns throughout the book, though her questions never cease.

I enjoyed seeing her bubbly attitude and realistic look at life take the radicals aback in how she simply laid out what would happen if the LeafWings went straight into war and attacked the HiveWings and burned the hives. Death, and most of it innocent people.

The first series arc started in the middle of a war with the Dragonets of Destiny dealing with the repercussions of a pointless war. This series is now taking the side of "what do you do after a genocide;" is it OK for retaliation or do things need to be left? What should be done. The characters, Cricket especially, struggle with these questions because wrongs have been done, yet another genocide is not the answer. Cricket starts to see her HiveWing world for the horrific slave-trade/indentured servant world that it is, at it's a culture shock for her to see how badly her world suffers from racism.

All-in-all, I loved watching Cricket understand the repercussions of genocide and racism and watching her come to understand that the HiveWings are a racist society towards everyone else.

As other reviewers have noted, this series has gone downhill. My oldest recommends stopping at book 10 to avoid getting “hooked” on the next sections of the story which includes a same-sex attraction between characters in book 13. We’re done.

Loved all the books, not going to finish book 13, The Poison Jungle. Homosexual relationships is not something my young children need to be reading about! What happened to letting kids be kids!

Our least favorite Wings Of Fire book. Not enough action. Too much emotional self talk from main character.

I've been reading these books to my kids and we very much enjoy them. I have one boy and one girl, and they've both enjoyed the books. I read the books and point to the words because my kids are 5 and 8, so these books are a bit out of their reading level by themselves.

This book, number 12, is my kids' least favorite. My daughter said "It's too girly." My son said "not enough stuff goes on" (not enough happens/action.)

The main character has wayyyyy to much self talk/inner narration.

The author should either call it quits with the series, or build an entirely new story now that they're on a new continent. I feel like it's far different than all the previous books. The focus is on feelings and emotions and how the main character (a girl) liking a (boy) dragon.

If my kids wanted a kids romance novel, they wouldn't have read 12 books in this series so far (11 main books, plus Darkstalker book.)

Wow! This book was amazing! Tui T. Sutherland hasn’t ceased to amaze me with all the action she crams into relatively small books. This story is told from Crickets point of view, but other characters including Sundew, Swordtail, and Blue are also present in it. You learn a lot more about how the queen controls the minds of others in this book, and of course there is the romance between Cricket and Blue. I loved this book and am confident that those who are picking it up for the first time and others who are returning WoF fans will not be disappointed.

As much as I love this series, Hive Queen has some bad parts to it as well as the good parts.
The good part is that we get to see Pantala through Cricket’s eyes. It’s fascinating, yet sad at the same time when Cricket realizes that her whole life was a lie and that Wasp was using her powers to turn her own tribe into terrible dragons.
And another good part was that the story was exciting and detailed. The plot was good and the characters were great in their own way.
The bad parts was that somehow, the animus dragons lose their powers. Tui does not explain this, but Turtle gets mad and accuses Qibli of breaking animus magic.
Also, Sundew is in love with someone. I am not bothered that she is in love, though. The fact that I am bothered about is that she
loves another female LeafWing. Yes. And she constantly brings it up, so just be prepared for the worst.

We were so excited to receive book...even a few days after Christmas..unfortunately the cover of the book fell apart from the spine. And all the pages are falling out.
My daughter collects these and she is so sad it has to go back ...

My son loves this series so much, years later and he still gets excited for a new one. I keep asking if he’s outgrown them yet and he says no, it’s a fun read for him now. Will continue to order these when they come out. Note we pre ordered which usually means we receive on the release date but in this case we didn’t receive until the 28th, release date was the 26th.