Lin's Perspective

I don’t think I will be able to articulate how much I have fallen in love with these characters Pax, Peter, Vola, Bristle. It would be amazing if someone actually made a movie or an animated film of this beautiful story about a boy and his fox.

The second book is centered around our main characters Pax and Peter, however here we tackle different aspects of the emotions Peter is dealing with and how he overcomes these adversities, while Pax has struggles on his own. So we follow them again in their journey of forgiveness, grieving, and acceptance.

SPOILER SECTION

In the first few chapters, we find out that Peter has lost his father due to the war. He is now 14 years old and has to deal with the loss of both his parents. The only family he has got left is his grandad and Vola whom she sees as a family. The author did an incredible job of depicting the struggle of the teenage boy dealing with such an immense emotional and psychological scar. We follow him through his endeavours, outbursts, and anger. We cannot do anything else but want to just give him a huge hug and never let him go.

Pax on the other hand has a family now with Bristle they have 3 healthy puppies and are taking care of them, teaching them how to survive in this cruel and hostile world where the main threat is the mere human presence.

After the war was over the nature suffered water contamination, a group of “Water Warriors” have taken it upon themselves to decontaminate as many water bodies as they can to save the nature and the animals that rely on these waters. Peter joins them so he can help the cause and in the process, he crosses paths with Pax and its small daughter.

The only problem is that Pax’s cub has been poisoned by the heavy metals and is slowly dying. The fox entrusts “his boy” with the little puppy fox and he returns to the rest of the skulk. While Peter still struggles with the acceptance of the death of his dad and the unresolved feelings towards him he contemplates putting the little one out of its misery. He opts not to do that and instead saves it and takes care of it as his own pet as she would not survive out in the wild due to damage in her legs the poisoning has already caused.

This was a deep study and observation of the complex emotions we go through when such difficult and sudden misfortunes happen to us. Peter and Pax’s love for one another is just so pure and I wish we people would learn from animals and their loyalty and unconditional love they could give.

The book was so emotional and so well written I just dont know what else to say except you should read it.