If there is one thing you can count on, it’s that Yee will knock it out of the park when it comes to writing the Avatar universe. This is only the first book of the duology but I gasped multiple times and was on the edge of my seat while reading. The Dawn of Yangchen is just so good!

Yee gets right into the action with 8 year old Yangchen having a fitful day due to her Avatar memories. She is unable to control when they come and she is thrown into her past life, often talking to an imaginary person but sometimes wailing over a loss that only she understands. She is haunted by her pasts and their regrets, so much regret. That is what sets the stage for Yangchen in the present as she determines to use her time to act and not live in regret over failed actions as her past lives did.

But as Yangchen is quickly realizing, it is hard to act when everyone around her refuse to listen to her commands. They much prefer the Avatar as a figurehead and when they want her to solve problems, solve them in a way that won’t interfere with their plans to attain wealth, land, prestige etc. It’s doubly difficult as leaders much preferred and respected her predecessor Avatar Szeto and see her an inexperienced, too trusting Air Nomad who has no idea how the “real” world works.

What is most interesting is that she is well aware of how the real world works. She remembers her past lives after all, she has relived them and Yee delicately plays out the two sides of Yangchen. The trusting, unmaterialistic, cheerful Air Nomad side and the deceptive, manipulative Avatar who will “shape” her ideals in order to achieve the greater good. She’s only levelling the playing field but it is clear that it takes a toll on her as she questions how close she is to breaking Air Nomad practices, dragging others with her into danger and deception and if it is even worth it in the end point. Will she also live in regret?

I think this best displays Yangchen’s struggles, “Her heritage provided the perfect excuse to withdraw. She’d embrace negative jing and retreat, far, far away, becoming a mountain peak that humanity could see but never reach. They’d be better off. She wouldn’t hurt anyone with her mistakes.
She wouldn’t save anyone either. . .

The blankness she had to push away every morning could be allowed permenant residence in her body, her heart, and her gut. She could embrace ut fully. She didn’t owe anyone anything.” (Yee 319)

And she really does get down and dirty with the best of them. Well as down and dirty as Air Nomad pacifist could be when the stakes are high. In this era, the Earth Kingdom operates under the shang system where a certain area of the kingdom is ruled by the elite who are ruled by a zongdu for each province. They control trade between the Kingdom, the Fire Nationa and the Water Tribes while also skimming funds to add to their own wealth behind the Earth King’s back. This is not a feasible system as they cheat the poor and their workers in harrowing conditions and raze the enviroment, angering the spirits. While Yangchen advises them to redistribute the wealth system, they all ignore or placate here with no plans to follow through.

This is especially true of Zondgu Henshe of the Bin-er province who teams up and double crosses and teams up (it’s very complicated. None of these characters trust one another) with Zondgu Chaisee of Jonduri. Together, they hold a weapon that could defeat the Earth King, the Fire Nation, anyone they choose so they’ll have complete power. Or one of them will have complete power when they inevitable turn on each other. Yep, this human greed threatens to throw the world off balance and it’s up to Yangchen to stop the desperate greedy Henshe and the ruthless tyrannical Chaisee.

Of course, she has help. Blackmailed into helping but still help. Yee once again creates an utterly unique and absorbing new underbelly to the Earth Kingdom where shangs vye for the best information through informants. Kavik, a North Pole refugee whose family travelled for better work after the hunts dried up. His parents don’t really know about his illegal activities but it’s all he can do since his older brother, Kalyaan went missing after he worked as an informant.

His encounter with the Avatar pretty much sets the stage for their relationship as she accidentally robs her room (hey he didn’t think he was robbing the Avatar. Just a rich shang. He isn’t stupid enough to come up with that plan) and flips it on its head when Yangche blackmails him into service. Their growing wariness to trust is sweet and comical as they bond over missing siblings, loss and Yangchen inspiring Kavik to believe they can change the world for the better.

But it is not as easy as that as Kavik faces his own temptations and demons due to his conflicting desires. His narration provides a more realistic look at the problems on the ground that Yangchen is trying to solve and to be eyes when she isn’t around. Though I do sometimes wish he hadn’t taken up so much of the narration. Yangchen felt more like a co-lead with Kavik compared to a solo show as it was with the Kyoshi novels.

Though I do really enjoy Kavik’s internal monologue, he’s very deadpan like Sokka such as when he is being beaten by the Avatar’s revenue for trying to rob her. He remarks, “At least beating me up is a multination effort.”

But back to Yangchen. She does have lots of sides as she struggles with moral issues and spiritual issues which fervant fans will remember be a fatal flaw in Yangchen’s cycle as her focus on human needs caused her to neglect spirits. Yangchen is closely connected to the spirit world as she is so often thrown into her past lives. But that also creates a fear and a wariness toward the spirits she must engage with ontop of the traumatic death of her siser, Jetsun which she fears was her fault. I hope Yee explores it more in the next book.

The antagonists and allies are all memorable especially the introduction of the White Lotus again. Seriously, I gasped when the person was revealed, I didn’t even connect the dots. There’s also Kavik’s surprising knife-wielding ally, Jujinta. A man of few words with deadly aim, supernatural weaponry skills, intense spiritual devotion and mysterious past. I loved him despite his small time on page. I hope he features more considering the changes wrought near the end of the novel.

So to conclude if you want more of the Avatar universe, Yee is your best bet as he creates each distinct era and Avatar with its struggles and triumphs that fight to overpower the balance.

I’ll just end with a paragraph that I really enjoyed. Yee’s writing of emotion is just so moving and he hits the point of what it is to be human.

“Yangchen could pretend all she wanted but it was no use. She would remain the instrument of her own suffering. She’d keep fighting, keep struggling, just like she’d commanded the unconscious woman to do in the hospital. It was her fate to make the same choice over and over again, as generations of Avatars had done before her. To know her past was to know her future.” (Yee 320)