I had mixed feelings throughout this book. Was it all Too Much? Could I get over and ignore the excessive capitalization (one of my pet peeves in fantasies)?
But my love for Robin McKinley (born back when I first read The Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown in elementary school--books to which I now trace my feminist leanings) won out in the end. It's a relatively simple story of a land under threat--and what it might take to save it.
I loved the characters--Marisol had a wonderful strength, and she wasn't one of those heroes who instantly knew the answer. And the complexities of the new Master were really interesting.
But my ongoing annoyance with some aspects result in the three stars. The world and its vocabulay just took too long to make any sense.