...Only to still have like six books in my backlog. Oy. Let's worry about that later, though.
So in the final Book of Bayern, our protagonist is Rin, Razo's beloved little sister. She's lived in the Forest with Ma and the rest of her huge family all her life, but recently, she's been feeling like she doesn't belong, like the very trees want to shun her.
No, seriously: Rin's always felt some communion with trees, but now they just fill her with a sick, shameful feeling whenever she tries to connect with them. She claims she's not sure why that is, but her veneer gets more and more cracked as the novel goes on.
To avoid the sickening tree feeling, Razo and Dasha take Rin back to the capital with them and secure her a position as one of Isi's ladies in waiting. Rin instantly falls in love with Tusken, Isi and Geric's two year old son, and protects him from untrustworthy servants like a fierce mama bear. Everything's going fairly well-
-until Geric and his company get attacked by fire speakers on their way back to the capital. Isi, Enna, and Dasha immediately pack up their things, partly to make sure their partners are okay, but mostly to use their own gifts to smoke out whoever tried to harm Geric. They decide to take Tusken along, too, once Rin and Isi learn that the untrustworthy servant, Celie, can't be found anywhere, and that means Rin is also going to travel as Tusken's nanny.
The girls meet up with the boys easily and the three "Fire Sisters," as Rin calls them, decide to continue on towards Kel, the source of all the fire speaking rumors. They try to go off alone, but Rin sneaks along after them desperately - being around the three of them, Isi especially, has finally relieved some of Rin's stress, and she doesn't want to let that go.
As they travel, Rin discovers that she's pretty good at getting people to respond to her desires - maybe even unnaturally good. Isi and Enna's talk about people speaking and how terrible it is plants a new fear in her mind, especially once the four girls meet the Queen of Kel and learn that she's kidnapped Tusken and Razo in order to extort Isi.
Who is the Queen of Kel? Can Rin break the Fire Sisters out of the dungeon? Most importantly, will Rin finally accept the truth about herself and her abilities? I'm not going to spoil that for any of you.
Forest Born is pretty cool, in my opinion, because it's just slightly different from the first three Books of Bayern. In the first three, Isi, Enna, and Razo all have the words and knowledge to give names to their powers - Isi knows she can speak with wind, Enna can read her fire knowledge, and Razo has seen both of these powers in action. Rin, however, doesn't understand that her quirks are actually powers like those of the Fire Sisters. She just thinks she's different and wrong, which is a really interesting take on the whole "person discovers their quirks are actually magic" genre.
(However, after three novels where the protagonists are all well aware of magic, Rin's total lack of functional descriptive language can make the book a little slower to read at times. I admit that that could just be my personal shortcoming, though.)
I also love how Forest Born brings the series full circle. Again, not spoiling the ending, but the explanations given for how this story is possible fit together easily, and also make sense of one of the catalysts from Enna Burning, too. I realize we should expect novels to have good continuity, but some plot twists just work better than others, and this is one of the truly well-written ones.
The last thing I want to say about Forest Born is that it doesn't include a romance, unlike the other three, and I love that. Rin's biggest struggle in this book is figuring who she is and what she can do - she's not in the right place to fall in love. Her self-discovery comes from inner strength and loving familial and platonic relationships, which we just don't see enough in literature. While I don't mind romantic relationships that help the protagonist learn more about themselves, people need to see that those aren't the only kind of relationships that are worthwhile and important.
Overall, Forest Born is a great conclusion to a fantastic series that tells of one girl's journey to self-esteem but also wraps up a larger, overarching plot in a clean, engaging way. Four stars.
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