Accordingly too, this novel of overcoming modesty puts the heroine in a rather more sympathetic light than the first, in which Menolly teetered dangerously on the edge of a rather tiresomely petulant teenage rebellion. In that respect it is a fitting companion to, and to an extent even retrospectively improves, the first novel in the trilogy, in which problems were resolved chiefly by running away. It is the story of a girl entering adulthood, and the story of a person who, as one character puts it, has ‘lived too long alone’ coming to live in society. In the absence of (serious) external obstacles to overcome, however, the flow of the narrative is instead directed internally: in essence, this is the story of Menolly overcoming her own fears and doubts to become an independent part of the world. Menolly, heroine of Dragonsong, has arrived at her intended place in the world, the Harper Hall, and that’s pretty much about it. Ostensibly, there’s very little plot indeed. The big surprise for me with this one, re-reading it for the umpteenth time, but after a period of some years, was how unusual the central plot was. Even the books that seem simplest and most conventional can still surprise.
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