Reviews

Haha, this is so very much a feel good book. Menolly never really struggles with anything, and her troubles are rather shallow compared to all of her advantages, but I can't help but like the book anyway.

Menolly is finally in Harper Hall and she is training to be a Harper. It turns out (well, we knew this already to a degree) that she's a prodigy and can play instruments to a high degree, make them, and compose songs. Of course this gains her a lot of jealousy, though only really on behalf of a group of girls who aren't really there to be Harpers, but rather learn at Harper Hall as some sort of prestige thing (kind of like the whole fostering thing the various places do). This made me slightly tired, especially when there's one girl who Menolly gets along with--pretty much the token best girl friend. She gets along well enough with the boys and as well with the Masterharper and several others in high offices.

She doesn't exactly put down her talent, but she always finds things wrong with what she does, when everyone else is full of praise. Eh, I get it, after all, it's not perfect, but she doesn't seem to realize that her talent is prodigious. Which, quite frankly, is a lot better than a main character who flaunts their talent everywhere, so I didn't really mind this.

There isn't much that happens. It's more of a view into Menolly's new life than any soaring plot, which is fine for me, since I like those kinds of books once in a while.

I feel like I keep saying "I don't really mind--", heh. But, okay, it's a very light read, there's very little plot, the main character is pretty much a Mary Sue, the only 'antagonists' are a group of girls who are jealous of Menolly, but I like it anyway. Menolly is a rather charming main character and it was fun reading about this brief stage in her life. 4/5 stars.

badgers's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

viivacious's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

1.75

A little better than some of the previous books, but still hard to get through. Listened to the Audio book, some questionable choices were made by the narrator, I think. The voice she gave the disabled character, I felt like I was back in middle school getting bullied. It really affected my enjoyment. And there was just so much sexism everywhere, both intentional and not. These books are just exhausting.