The Rise of Kyoshi

 Hello Interwebs!

I finally got around to delving more into the Avatar: The Last Airbender world with The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee. This is the first book in the Kyoshi novels, of which there are two, and deals with Avatar Kyoshi, the Avatar two cycles before Aang of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I read this from September 27th to October 1st and gave it four stars. As always spoilers abound after the picture. 

The Rise of Kyoshi is the origin story of Avatar Kyoshi, who isn't discovered as the Avatar until she's sixteen years old, much older than any Avatar. She's an earth bender and big and clumsy and not very naturally talented, especially lacking in subtlety. She can Earth bend on a grand scale but not on a small one. When we meet Kyoshi she's a little girl while the friends of the former avatar, water-bending Kuruk, are performing tests to find the Avatar. Kyoshi picks the belonging of a former avatar but before they can continue the test she runs away with the toy. 

Flash forward to the present timeline of the story and Kyoshi is sixteen years old and working in the household of the "avatar" a young man named Yun. Her best friend is Rangi, the avatar's fire bending personal guard, and her surrogate father is air-bender Kelsang who was a friend of Avatar Kuruk. Yun asks Kyoshi to go with them to a meeting with pirates that will end in a peace treaty and everything changes when the pirates sneak attack them and Kyoshi raises the sea floor to provide ground for bending on the iceberg. When she wakes up back at home, Kelsang reveals he always believed she could be the Avatar. They keep it quiet at first but then Jianzhu, the Earth bender friend of Avatar Kuruk and Yun's master reveals his own suspicions. 

Jianzhu takes Yun and Kyoshi to a spirit to reveal who is the true Avatar. The spirit indicates Kyoshi and Jianzhu sacrifices Yun to it to get the two of them away. Back at their transportation Kelsang meets them with his sky bison and Jianzhu kills him. Kyoshi temporarily subdues him, long enough for her to flee on the sky bison. She returns home to the compound just long enough to gather her personal belongings and to collect Rangi before the two girls flee. 

Kyoshi tells Rangi everything that has happened and decides to ask her parents' people for help, a band of criminals called the Flying Opera Company. Reluctantly these outlaws of her late parents take her in and as she reveals her identity as the Avatar the water bender and earth bender in the group begin to teach Kyoshi and Rangi begins to teach her fire bending. They work with some other criminal gangs and Kyoshi wins her first victory as the acknowledged Avatar. 

Along the way Kyoshi and Rangi begin a romantic relationship and Kyoshi learns more about her parents from the people who knew them best and realizes there was a reason she was left behind as a child, to give her a different life, a noncriminal one. After defeating the corrupt ultimate leader of the outlaw group Jianzhu kidnaps Rangi and ships her back to his compound. Kyoshi goes to meet him to negotiate her release but it turns out to be a trick by Kyoshi and her new "family". While she deals with Jianzhu, the others rescue Rangi with the sky bison. She and Jianzhu are fighting to a stalemate when Yun appears out of nowhere and kills Jianzhu, leaving it unclear as to whether Yun is a ghost or survived somehow. They leave and end up splitting up at the end. 

The Flying Opera Company goes off one way, Kyoshi goes to the Air Temple where Kelsang was from to continue to her air bending training, and Rangi goes to her mother to help her recover. 

Through the book you discover some truths about how Kyoshi became the Avatar we know from the show. You see her lonely outcast childhood, her relationship with Rangi, her experiences with criminals that make her the law and order Avatar from later, the way her experiences shape her into a defender of the weak and downtrod, and why she wears the make-up you see her wear in Avatar: The Last Airbender which is reflected in the Kyoshi warriors. It was a story I didn't know I needed but I am very glad I got. 

I gave this book a solid 4/5 stars and I highly recommend it to any fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender or Avatar: The Legend of Korra. I am both and I loved it. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle