Quite hard to rate a book which combines one story which is very good and the other not so. I was excited to learn The Last Unicorn had a sequel, though also a bit skeptical on the quality of such a follow-up. "Two Hearts" was wonderfully done and was a fitting end for Lir. It was nice just to be able to see how these characters are doing, and the new protagonist Sooz and her dog were both welcome delights.

However, the longer of these stories, while not abhorrent, had a glaring issue which I was in no way warned about and made for a negative experience. "Sooz" follows Sooz as an adult, and is only connected to The Last Unicorn in that Sooz met the protagonists of the original novel as a child. It's entirely an original story about her, and while I did enjoy it, it was less compelling.

My main issue is that Sooz is raped at the very beginning of her quest, for some inexplicable reason that is not justified at all by the themes or character development. Thankfully it's not graphic, but there was literally no reason for it to happen. It's repeated how Sooz keeps seeing the faces of the men, and even has her say she will see the faces of them in her final moments of life. A terrible thing to say, and there is no real exploration of her recovering from this, just an assumption that she will be like this forever. And why? I cannot figure out why, as the rest of the plot around finding her sister and bonding with another main character while coming of age has nothing to do with this.

No, rape is not necessary to introduce a character to the harshness of the world. It is not necessary as random angst in a story unrelated to it, and it certainly isn't necessary for coming of age character development. It's a tired trope and it's wild it was put in here so casually.