Overall pretty average, with a few standout moments. I thought the scene with the sandbenders was a good character moment for Sozin.

This was notably less experimental than the Yee books. Yee tried to experiment with genres, this felt like a treatment for a prequel season of the cartoon.

I appreciate that the author was handed a difficult task with "your protagonist must be a good person and likeable, but is also best friends with teenage Hitler".

The author had a strange tic where he didn't entirely avoid the word "kill" or "die", but would often substitute "end" or another euphemism. It felt like the publisher only allocated him a certain number of uses.

The lengthy reading time wasn't due to length or quality of the book, I just got very busy at work and reading election news, and fell out of the habit of reading.