Kyoshi never deals with the philosophy of bending the different elements or how she personally approaches those philosophies, we're just told that she's training and then she whips out whatever element is suitable to the plot whenever it's convenient. The training scenes are very lackluster and don't really focus on the training, but rather they mostly serve as a backdrop for the romantic plot. I think Yee did a great job of incorporating elements of Chinese history into the story like female pirate queens, bandit brotherhoods, and a corrupt bureaucracy, however it never had a satisfying Avatar twist to it. Aside from the hybrid-animals and references to the television show (like the inclusion of the Beifong family), the entire story could have been set in pre-modern China and nothing would have to change. While the book has several issues (a love story devoid of tension or suspense, lackluster action scenes, and shallow characters, to name a few), the most glaring to me is how the whole story is almost completely devoid of any of the key facets of Avatar stories: the bending, the training, and the world-building. The Rise of Kyoshi is a boiler plate Hero's Journey that fails to capture any of the charm, wit, or excitement of it's television counterparts. He tried to something different with Kyoshi and Rangi’s relationship but that was dry and not very interesting. Yee did the best he could but it wasn’t good enough. I was waiting for that memorable moment that never came. As an ATLA fan, I am deeply saddened by the direction the story went. I really wanted to like this book, but it feels dry and bland. Yee goes into almost pornographic detail on the littlest things which I found annoying and unnecessary. I found my mind wandering off often times and had to go back ten minutes only to find out nothing happened. There were no memorable moments, watered down action sequences and cringy dialogue. It feels like a lesbian soft porn flick and it is this book’s main focus. While I am on this subject, that’s all this book is. The only interesting part was her being a lesbian but even that was done poorly. Kyoshi was such a boring character as well. I couldn’t finish this book for fear that I would die of boredom. The characters were boring and uninteresting. I don’t understand why this book was such a craze.

The Rise of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee