Talking to Dragons

oh hm it's wild that this was written FIRST. I'm trying to imagine the experience of reading this without already knowing the stuff from the first 3 books. I guess you'd be more in Daystar's shoes and not appreciating some of the little hints of past characters.

I also think as an adult reading this–and one who LOVES Cimorene–it's hard not to just be like “hold on, Cimorene was just single momming it up for SIXTEEN YEARS while her husband was stuck in a time stasis that sounds like it was pretty traumatizing for him?!?” And like as a child reader of course you're meant to be in Daystar's POV and that's pretty standard fairy tale stuff so it's like oh sure whatever mom but IDK I was just so struck by that!!

also kind of disappointed that Morwen married Telemain tbh...when that didn't happen at the 3rd book like I expected I thought maybe Wrede was going to zag on us and let Morwen have her happy spinster rights.

I think if Wrede wrote this now a lot of the gender stuff would play out differently butttt it is still a somewhat dissatisfying product of its time I suppose.