“Why are you shouting?” I asked the forest. “It’s okay. You’re home.”
“Then why are you here?” the trees asked. “If this is our home, who are you?”

Not gonna lie, I expected a similar experience from this book as I got from Elatsoe, since they seemed to have a similar vibe from the get-go. And so I also expected to love it as much as I loved Elatsoe. Unfortunately, I didn't (although I did enjoy it a whole lot), and I think the problem for me was that in many respects, it's very much like the author's first book, except it also isn't at all. Let me try and elaborate.

All the things I loved about Elatsoe are present here: the Lipan Apache mythology, the spirit world (even more of it here, with its very own storyline!), the subtle beautiful ace representation, and the super strong focus on family. That focus is done wonderfully once again. Both lead characters are completely engrossed in their family situations at all times: Nina is digging into her family's roots, worrying for her Grandmother, coping with her mother physical absence while also remaining close to both of her parents; Oli is building a found family of his own (and such an amazing one! this is all I want from this trope!) while also searching for his siblings.

The problem is, the scope and the stakes of the overall story are so far beyond this. It's really a story about climate change and related problems and the impact they have on people and spirits alike, which was intended to be told through the lens of families. But I felt like the story kept slipping and just being about families instead, and then every return to the big plot felt rocky. I kept wishing for the scope to deflate and the stakes to go lower so I could just focus on the things that mattered. I don't remember catching so much as a whiff of the same feeling when I read Elatsoe, even though stakes grew kind of high there by the end, too, because in that book, there was no such dissonance between scope and focus. It was a family story through and through.

Regardless, I did enjoy the write. All the characters are amazing, the prose flows nicely, and our world with all its high-tech and problems blends nicely here with the world of the spirits. I hope I'll get to read more from Darcie Little Badger in the future.