"Into the Wild" (Warriors #1) by Erin Hunter

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Book Blurb (from Goodreads):
For generations, four Clans of wild cats have shared the forest according to the laws laid down by their warrior ancestors. But the ThunderClan cats are in grave danger, and the sinister ShadowClan grows stronger every day. Noble warriors are dying-- and some deaths are more mysterious than others. In the midst of this turmoil appears an ordinary house cat named Rusty... who may turn out to be the bravest warrior of them all.

My Review

"Fire alone can save our Clan."

I remember reading this series many years ago in middle school and being a total fan. To this day I have fond memories of the books. However, it has been a long time since I read them and I was in the mood for some feel-good nostalgia again, especially given the current times. So I decided to reread one of my favourite series!

Honestly, I was not disappointed at all when re-reading this. It brought back soooo many good memories! I had forgotten just how much fun I had when I first read these books and wow; I totally understand now why I was obsessed with this series and why it became one of my favourites.  So yes, I guess I will be a little biased when writing this review...

Plot: Rusty, a house cat dreaming of a life in the wild, learns of the four wildcat Clans that coexist in the forest: ThunderClan, ShadowClan, WindClan and RiverClan. He gets accepted into ThunderClan, where he is given the name Firepaw, training as an apprentice alongside his friend Graypaw to become a warrior.
I loved the fast-paced action of the book. Especially since I was looking for a light-hearted read, this one really got me sucked back into the world as twists and turns were thrown into the story. The plot itself was actually quite straight-forward with hints strewn throughout the novel as to who the real villain was. Because there weren't so many complexities, it was exciting to read how each plot twist escalated the tension and excitement.
I will say though, that at some parts, especially near the beginning when the story just kicked off, the events were packed too tightly together chronologically. As an example: just as Firepaw got accepted into the Clan, several disastrous events struck at the same time. He never seemed to catch a break! But as the story progressed, the events were spaced out more nicely along the timeline, so that it didn't feel as forced anymore.

Characters:  With such a huge cast of characters, it's a real achievement to have each of them be memorable - but the author has easily managed to do just that. Over time, it is easy to understand how some of these characters, like Firepaw or even Yellowfang, can sneak their way into the reader's heart. I honestly love the Clan naming system: the kittens are given the suffix '-kit', the apprentices '-paw', the Clan leader '-star', while the remaining warriors use their full names. It's just so... structured and organized and really lends the story a mysterious aura, which I absolutely adore.
However, at the beginning of the book, it did feel like a whirlwind of characters: names and appearances casually tossed at the reader, overwhelming in number and hard to remember.
It was great though that the book had a character glossary at the start to remedy that issue: showing information about to which Clans the cats belong, their rank and their appearance. Honestly, with the number of cats the reader is introduced to, the glossary is really a necessity.

Worldbuilding: Erin Hunter built a world that is really easy to fall in love with. I love animals and stories surrounding them already, so something like this was totally up my alley. Interspersed with fantastical elements, the author crafted an intricate world told from a new perspective (of a cat). There were rule and logic behind each aspect of the world, which is something I greatly appreciate in a novel.
However, introducing the hidden, albeit massive, lore of the world and the cat Clans comes with its own challenges because it can be easy to overwhelm the reader with a lot of information at once. That is something I sensed many years ago when I first read the book and I felt it again when rereading: once Rusty was accepted into ThunderClan, the onslaught of information began. It can be very confusing at first, even having read the series before. Many characters and rules of the Clan were introduced within two to three pages - information overload! However, this was an issue that was only noticeable at the very beginning of the book. As the story progressed, new information trickled in gradually at a good pace for the reader and by then, I was so acclimatized to the previous information I received, that I just took it in stride and added the new tidbits to the expanding world of the Clans in my head. I definitely remembered the information from the beginning now, because it gets rehashed very frequently throughout the book.

Writing: Rereading the book now, I, of course, realized that the behaviour of the cats is not realistic, but that honestly didn't bother me, because even though the cats were given such human-like traits, they were still meowing, purring cats doing extraordinary things. Common things like the seasons received new terms from the perspective of the cats, like leaf-fall for autumn, newleaf instead of spring, etc. These small additional touches really lent the whole story a sense of realism despite its fictional nature.
The writing style captivated me many years ago and it still does now. It conveys the emotions of the characters so well, that the reader could empathize with them. I could literally feel the restlessness that Rusty felt as a housecat, the freedom and exhilaration and unadulterated joy when he became Firepaw of ThunderClan.
Erin Hunter wrote in such a way that I was easily drawn into the created world: using great descriptions that truly excited the reader and compelled them to keep reading to find out what happens next. 

Final Thoughts: a truly captivating and exciting read that anyone of any age can enjoy. The novel suffers a little at the start from the sheer amount of worldbuilding that's happening, but if you bear through it, it's truly worth it. (I have absolutely no regrets rereading it)