The Last (Endling #1) by Katherine Applegate

Byx is the youngest and most vulnerable member of the dairne pack in a world where dairnes are about to become extinct. There aren’t many of these dog-like but intelligent and communicating creatures left in the world, and Byx doesn’t know whether to believe the legends and rumor that other dairne packs exist in the far off north or not. When Byx loses her own family, she goes on a journey to find the other dairnes, the ones who will keep her from being the endling, the last of her kind. Will she find them, and will the humans and other creatures that have joined her on her quest be her new family or will they betray her to the evil dictator, Murdano, who wants to destroy the dairnes and any other creatures who will not obey him.

This book has a lot of newly coined words and newly imagined creatures: dairnes, wobbyks, raptidons, felivets, and others. It reminded me of the Warriors and Bravelands series of books by Erin Hunter and of The Guardians of Ga’hoole books by Kathryn Lasky. Anthropomorphized animals or animal-like characters and a quest to save the world or the species or both make for good plots to hang a story upon. And The Last is a good story.

I did face the never-ending frustration as I was reading of realizing that I was about twenty pages from the end of the book, and the loose ends were numerous and the miles to go on the quest that forms the impetus for the plot were barely begun. So, this story wasn’t going to end neatly or even at all. That said, the ending wasn’t too bad; no one was hanging from the edge of a cliff, literal or figurative, at the close of this first volume.

The tone was rather dark. Extinction looms for the dairnes and for other species. Humans are taking over the world and running roughshod over the other governing species. In fact, humans are portrayed as greedy and power-drunk and traitorous liars, most of the time. The dairnes, on the other hand, never lie and always know when others are not telling the truth, a useful and rather dangerous skill in a world where a murderous dictator is trying to consolidate his reign over the other species. But this devotion to the truth doesn’t keep Byx from telling herself that since she may be the endling, perhaps her death would be better than living in a world where she is the only dairne left.

I feel as if this series can only improve as it moves into future volumes, but of course, that remains to be seen. Could this series be another Animorphs?

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This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

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