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lottiezeb 's review for:
The Singing
by Alison Croggon
So What’s It About?
The Singing follows the separate journeys of Maerad and Cadvan, and Maerad's brother Hem, as they desperately seek each other in an increasingly battle-torn land. The Black Army is moving north and Maerad has a mighty confrontation with the Landrost to save Innail. All the Seven Kingdoms are being threatened with defeat. Yet Maerad and Hem hold the key to the mysterious Singing and only in releasing the music of the Elidhu together may the Nameless One be defeated.
Can brother and sister find each other in time to fight the Nameless One, and are they strong enough to defeat him??
What I Thought
This’ll be a short and sweet review of this finale. The Singing holds up to the quality of the rest of the Books of Pellinor, and I’m so glad that I discovered this series last year. I wrote a joking note in my review doc that these books are 90% aimless travel, 5% Maerad taking baths and 5 % plot developments, but I can’t help but love them and be so thoroughly charmed by them. The writing is lovely, and there is such a sense of Pellinor being a real, ancient, beautiful world. More than anything, what I enjoy is how grounded the books are in kindness and coziness and good living - friendship, love, compassion, simple comforts. As Cadvan says, maybe one of the biggest differences between Maerad and the dark lord Sharma is that Sharma would never be able to sit in the sunlight and enjoy a pear. :)
Speaking of Sharma, I will say that he always feels quite vague and nebulous as a villain; the book’s climax doesn’t even feature him being present in person to be defeated and feels pretty anticlimactic as a result. I also feel obligated to mention that the romance between Maerad and Cadvan does blossom here, to my eternal disappointment - I’ll just never be onboard for the teenage girl x ancient man romances that are so prevalent in YA fantasy. That being said, though, I stand by my overall conviction that these books make up a lovely reading experience that I already look back on fondly.
The Singing follows the separate journeys of Maerad and Cadvan, and Maerad's brother Hem, as they desperately seek each other in an increasingly battle-torn land. The Black Army is moving north and Maerad has a mighty confrontation with the Landrost to save Innail. All the Seven Kingdoms are being threatened with defeat. Yet Maerad and Hem hold the key to the mysterious Singing and only in releasing the music of the Elidhu together may the Nameless One be defeated.
Can brother and sister find each other in time to fight the Nameless One, and are they strong enough to defeat him??
What I Thought
This’ll be a short and sweet review of this finale. The Singing holds up to the quality of the rest of the Books of Pellinor, and I’m so glad that I discovered this series last year. I wrote a joking note in my review doc that these books are 90% aimless travel, 5% Maerad taking baths and 5 % plot developments, but I can’t help but love them and be so thoroughly charmed by them. The writing is lovely, and there is such a sense of Pellinor being a real, ancient, beautiful world. More than anything, what I enjoy is how grounded the books are in kindness and coziness and good living - friendship, love, compassion, simple comforts. As Cadvan says, maybe one of the biggest differences between Maerad and the dark lord Sharma is that Sharma would never be able to sit in the sunlight and enjoy a pear. :)
Speaking of Sharma, I will say that he always feels quite vague and nebulous as a villain; the book’s climax doesn’t even feature him being present in person to be defeated and feels pretty anticlimactic as a result. I also feel obligated to mention that the romance between Maerad and Cadvan does blossom here, to my eternal disappointment - I’ll just never be onboard for the teenage girl x ancient man romances that are so prevalent in YA fantasy. That being said, though, I stand by my overall conviction that these books make up a lovely reading experience that I already look back on fondly.