A review by futurememory
The Pearl of the Soul of the World by Meredith Ann Pierce

3.0

Arg, I don't even know how to properly rate this one! The prose is wonderful, dreamy, lyrical. The worldbuilding here is fascinating and fantastic, fleshing out the moon as a SFF setting unlike any we've seen before. But boy is that ending a tough pill to swallow.

Spoiler

I really love that Meredith Ann Pierce was willing to give us a complicated, heartbreaking ending. But it's also one that is pretty unsatisfying for the reader. We're left with a bit of a cliffhanger, with our heroine forced into a different kind of slavery than she was in before. Aeriel sacrifices so much through the books, and it just seems like her sacrifices will have to continue. Which is, of course, just really, really difficult to deal with as a reader. The triumph is just not there.

I have a feeling this series will stick with me for a long time.