REVIEW: The Awakening of Roku
The Awakening of Roku
By Randy Ribay
279 pages/Amulet Books/$21.99
I was once again invited to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender with the most recent offering in their Legends series of young adult novels. After previously entering this world, with no prior knowledge, with City of Echoes, I am now tasked with evaluating Roku’s story, a follow-up to Randy Ribyay’s 2022 book The Reckoning of Roku.
We know Roku today as a powerful Airbender, but this duology takes us back to his beginnings, notably his training and emergence as a promising young avatar. We open, three years after the previous book, in the dead of winter as Roku leaves his master, feeling the time has come to go out on his own.
En route to Agna Qel’a, he is forced off-course when he encounters an illness that has spread to the people of a Northern Water Tribe settlement. As he tries to help them, he discovers there is much more to this than a mere disease. He winds up partnering with his good friend Gyatso and a gifted waterbender named Makittuq.
We come to learn that their Tribal Chief Tiguaa had been harboring vital resources for profit. The illness that drew Roku’s attention proved to be one of many, including one that made even placid animals aggressive, threatening the villagers.
Ribay does a nice job deepening the friendship between Roku and Gyatso. Even after years of training, our hero harbors self-doubts as he continues to master the four elements, culminating in airbending (his opposite element). Sozin, who those far better steeped in this lore are aware, knows to be a Fire Lord, but here he is younger and a good companion to Roku. He spends time trying to get Roku to confess his love for Ta Min, referencing their meeting in the previous volume, but Roku never finds the courage to do so, showing his youth and naivety. Their established friendship foreshadows events to come.
Similarly, introducing the Water Tribe nicely expands the world. It gives us greater insight into the reality of the time the story is set in, well before the events of the animated series.
His style is clear and draws you along without losing you. As a novice to this reality, I had little trouble piecing things together. This book successfully delivers action, character growth, and more profound lore, even if its style differs from previous entries.
