Somehow I had made it all the way to 2018 without having read anything by Robin McKinley, and I decided that this was the year that would change. This was the book I had heard mentioned the most, so I thought I would start here.
The story is the (at least now) classic tale of the young daughter of the king who can't lead her people becoming the person who can lead her people. Aerin is an absolute delight of a character, and the first part of the book gives the backstory of how she secretly learned how to brew a potion that would protect her from dragon fire, and rode her father's old warhorse who was injured in battle but still had enough life left in him to be her trusty steed, and how her cousin Tor trained her in swordplay while also falling in love with her. She is feared by the people of the kingdom because she resembles her mother, and there are rumors that her mother bewitched the king, and so Tor is the heir to the throne rather than Aerin. But the kingdom has been without its hero's crown for ages, and is therefore vulnerable to attacks. Aerin's father and Tor and the entire army is about to go North to deal with a demon attack, and while they go off to do this, Aerin goes to fight a massive dragon, Maur. Will she find the hero's crown? Who can say???
All of this is great! I really liked the first half of the story, and it hits tropes super well, and I love Aerin being completely oblivious to Tor's feelings for her, and all that. The pacing of the book started to concern me right at the midpoint, because the first time Maur is mentioned early on as a myth, you know Aerin is going to have to defeat him, but she does so at just about the halfway point, which feels too soon. And then in order to recover from her wounds from the fight, she finds Luthe, who's immortal and knew her mother who wasn't exactly a witch but wasn't NOT a witch, and they train and she goes and fights the final big bad of the book in a confrontation that is far more metaphorical and symbolic than I want from my fights, magic or not. Plus Luthe healing her made her immortal too, which is great but also makes her less of the world than I want her to be, and the relationship and love she has with Luthe is great, but then she goes back and marries Tor, and I'm fine with BOTH of those things happening but I want them each to have more weight than the book gives them. I love the idea of Tor being her human love and Luthe being her immortal love, but Tor ends up being much less of that, and it makes the entire narrative unsatisfying to me in a way that it didn't have to be. Basically: I understand why there would be fanfic about this universe (SORRY, ROBIN).
The book definitely feels like a early novel in a writer's career, and also some of the subplots and themes feel quite dated: Aerin has a girl cousin named Galanna who she's constantly sparring with, which is fine, but that character more or less fades away when her husband (yet another cousin) dies in the final battle, and it feels very out of nowhere and a disservice to Galanna, who should be more relevant in general. The deepest and most emotionally consistent relationship throughout the whole book is between Aerin and her horse Talat, which is great, but I would have liked to have seen that with other characters as well. The book becomes more uneven as it goes, which is a shame, because I was completely on board with the start of it. I still enjoyed the story as a whole, but it definitely lost its way for me toward the end.
Grade: B
The story is the (at least now) classic tale of the young daughter of the king who can't lead her people becoming the person who can lead her people. Aerin is an absolute delight of a character, and the first part of the book gives the backstory of how she secretly learned how to brew a potion that would protect her from dragon fire, and rode her father's old warhorse who was injured in battle but still had enough life left in him to be her trusty steed, and how her cousin Tor trained her in swordplay while also falling in love with her. She is feared by the people of the kingdom because she resembles her mother, and there are rumors that her mother bewitched the king, and so Tor is the heir to the throne rather than Aerin. But the kingdom has been without its hero's crown for ages, and is therefore vulnerable to attacks. Aerin's father and Tor and the entire army is about to go North to deal with a demon attack, and while they go off to do this, Aerin goes to fight a massive dragon, Maur. Will she find the hero's crown? Who can say???
All of this is great! I really liked the first half of the story, and it hits tropes super well, and I love Aerin being completely oblivious to Tor's feelings for her, and all that. The pacing of the book started to concern me right at the midpoint, because the first time Maur is mentioned early on as a myth, you know Aerin is going to have to defeat him, but she does so at just about the halfway point, which feels too soon. And then in order to recover from her wounds from the fight, she finds Luthe, who's immortal and knew her mother who wasn't exactly a witch but wasn't NOT a witch, and they train and she goes and fights the final big bad of the book in a confrontation that is far more metaphorical and symbolic than I want from my fights, magic or not. Plus Luthe healing her made her immortal too, which is great but also makes her less of the world than I want her to be, and the relationship and love she has with Luthe is great, but then she goes back and marries Tor, and I'm fine with BOTH of those things happening but I want them each to have more weight than the book gives them. I love the idea of Tor being her human love and Luthe being her immortal love, but Tor ends up being much less of that, and it makes the entire narrative unsatisfying to me in a way that it didn't have to be. Basically: I understand why there would be fanfic about this universe (SORRY, ROBIN).
The book definitely feels like a early novel in a writer's career, and also some of the subplots and themes feel quite dated: Aerin has a girl cousin named Galanna who she's constantly sparring with, which is fine, but that character more or less fades away when her husband (yet another cousin) dies in the final battle, and it feels very out of nowhere and a disservice to Galanna, who should be more relevant in general. The deepest and most emotionally consistent relationship throughout the whole book is between Aerin and her horse Talat, which is great, but I would have liked to have seen that with other characters as well. The book becomes more uneven as it goes, which is a shame, because I was completely on board with the start of it. I still enjoyed the story as a whole, but it definitely lost its way for me toward the end.
Grade: B
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