novelinsights 's review for:

Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey
4.0

This was by far my favorite of the Dragonriders of Pern books so far. Following Menolly, a young girl with a talent for music, we see her oppressed by her family and culture, who believe that women are not meant to be musicians ('harpers'). We see her create a life for herself, and we also get a glimpse at some of the more open-minded characters of Pern who don't really care what gender a person is.

While all the Dragonriders of Pern books depict old-fashioned ideals of sexism slowly being overridden, this is one of the most straightforward and unabashed examples, and I greatly enjoyed it. It was also shorter and snappier than the other DoP books I've read so far, though it still had the old-fashioned "telling rather than showing" writing style found in the rest of the series.