Very interesting fantasy story and wonderful descriptions of characters and setting and two diverse cultures learning to live together. Hope there is a second book. ( )

Oh, Robin McKinley, I do so love you and your fantasy worlds.

Where to begin? I’ve been a fan of McKinley since I read Spindle’s End. And Sunshine, but it would be a few years before I find out that the author I loved in middle school for Spindle’s End is the author I love for doing a different spin on vampires in Sunshine a few years later. She gives a different spin to stories and ideas, packing them with emotion and spirit.

She also tends to have a main character I want to have as my best friend; Sylvi is no different. The youngest of four, and the only daughter, Sylvi has played “catch-up” most of her life. She’s petite, and her brothers tend to treat her as either inconsequential or too seriously. She’s closest to her eldest brother, but as he is the heir his responsibilities grew to the point where he was no longer able to spend a lot of time with her.

Surprisingly, her parents give her a lot of latitude. They don’t try to force her to do anything she doesn’t want to (though there is the unspoken obligation that she will at least try it first before rejecting the idea) and they accept her unconventional relationship with her Pegasus, Ebon, without too much fuss. Almost all of the conflict comes in the form of Fthoom, the Head of the Magician’s Guild, who is strongly opposed to Sylvi. I found Sylvi’s father to be something of an idiot to not truly understand the sort of danger Fthoom represented; more than once he spoke out against the King and he was very, very open about his feelings in regards to Sylvi and Ebon’s relationship.

Pegasus isn’t a perfect novel; there are some flaws that might make others grind their teeth. There’s a lot of back and forth in the narrative, sometimes with very little warning before we go from a “current” conversation to a past memory. Or a jump to the future in the middle of a chapter. Sometimes when reading I would grow confused as to who is talking or what is going on and have to go back to the preceding pages to re-read. Additionally the book ends at an awkward moment, mostly because McKinley has already commented that it was becoming too long when she wrote it, and the “conclusion” would be a book by itself. Wahoo for more time spent in this world, but this part of the story ends on a heart-wrenching note.

This is also not an action-packed book; While none of McKinley’s books can truly claim to have action scenes, this is definitely a low key book even for her. A lot of the tension comes from rising courtly politics; of the worldly concerns nature, the “fight” that occurs near the end, and some of the past battles (discussed) are the only true action.

I wish we had the conclusion to what was happening. Sylvi has a guess, and I think I worked out what was really happening, at least partially based on the clues and obsessive re-reading, but I wish we knew now. Here’s hoping the second book comes out quickly, and the pain Sylvi feels is short-lived. ( )

No. Just no.

It had such a good premise: humans and pegasi co-existing, humans and pegasi being magically bonded, a fantasy story that didn't seem to be extremely sexist (though very heterosexual), no love story ... we could have had it aaaaaaaaaaaall.

But no. The first 50 pages is just back-story, smacked over your head. You thought Tolkien's prologue to LotR was bad? I ain't got nothing on this, I'm telling you that. It takes even longer than that before the plot starts, well, whatever plot there is, which isn't much.

Basically, Sylvi (human princess) is bonded to Ebon (pegasus prince) and they are special because they can actually speak telepathically to each other which no one else can. Instead they rely on schamans (pegasi) or magicians/speakers (humans) to translate between pegasus and human.

People are immediately pissed that they can speak to each other, because that's obviously bad. Why is it obviously bad? Because the plot demands it to be. The evil magician Fthoom (HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE THAT!?) spends four years researching why it is bad, but what he finds and delivers as a game-changing speak in the last chapters is not something he could have possibly known when he first said it was bad. He just did because the story needed a bad guy.

THe same way it needed rules on how pegasi and humans could interact. They can't fly together, touch each other, speak to each other, blah blah blah for no reason. Ofc our heroine does this all the time and literally nothing bad happens. There just rules for the sake of rules.

The first part of the book is mostly told in flashbacks, even when we're dealing with events happening RIGHT NOW. You'll have situation A presented to you, skip to situation C and then have the character look back at situation B that just happened. WHY NOT JUST GIVE US ABC IN THAT ORDER!? WHY USE THIS NARRATIVE GRIP ALL THROUGHOUT THE FIRST 200 PAGES.

Ugh, it's just ... it doesn't feel edited, at all. Things pop up in the later half of the book that hasn't been introduced before but then they become a normal part of the plot, such as the telepathic link having trouble translating pegasi phrases to Sylvii. It should've been there the whole time.

Plus, there's no plot. It's bascially that Sylvii gets bonded and then goes on vacation to the pegasi land and then she comes home and Fthoom makes his speech. End of book. And oh, the ending wasn't even good, just a lame cliffhanger to force you to read the next book, which I can assure you I won't do because fuck no.

I can't remember the last time it took me this long to finish a book. I've read books twice this long in shorter time than this took me, 'cause I just couldn't be bothered with it. It had a great premise and could've been good, but whoever edited this seriously dropped the ball on this one. ( )

Good book, the author has created a fantastic world. However, as others have already said, it ends way too abruptly. Just a few more pages, or even a few more *paragraphs* would have tied it up far better than it is now. I can only hope that the sequel comes out sooner rather than later. ( )

But... Where's the sequel? I need the sequel. ( )