If the first book was about Alanna learning to train for knighthood while being a girl, this book was about Alanna learning to be a girl while training for knighthood. A fine distinction, perhaps, but an important one for her character development. This book in the quartet was about her embracing those parts of her that are absolutely female, and about learning that they are not weaknesses, that they needn't be hidden all the time, and that they are completely compatible with and in fact necessary for living the life she really wants to live.

Faithful's introduction was a lovely thing. I do so love an animal companion, and Faithful is one of the best. Vaguely sarcastic talking magic cats are pretty much the perfect thing.

There is more Myles being awesome, more George and Jon being pretty darn cool, a larger role for Gary, and just generally Alanna having really great friends who know her better than herself and have got her back. She is even a heroine who realizes that, for once, and almost never takes them for granted. I just love all of these characters and every time I pick one of these books back up I remember why.

The Ordeal was kind of dark. Not too dark, because this is obviously not an adult book, but handling everything that went on in there was kind of scary. Also, I share her distaste for spiders. Just...ew. It was worth the terror for her to end up handling her fears and finally earning the knighthood she so deserves.

I am probably going to be spending some time in Tortall for the next few weeks; I can feel it growing on me again, and they are all rather short books. For now, I'll leave you with Alanna's last words:

"C'mon, Coram!" she cried, galloping past him. "Let's go find an adventure!"

This is clearly the book about Alanna accepting her magic.

Watching Alanna learn who she is throughout the series is half the fun, because she struggles with accepting all the portions of herself and of who she wants to be quite a bit. She needs to learn to be more flexible as she grows up, and this book helps her along that path.

She spends the book with the Bazhir. Here, in a tribe that ends up adopting her, she ends up fighting against a microcosm of the culture she tried to escape from when going on adventures after earning her shield (and admitting she was female) at the end of the last book.

They are not huge fans of the idea of a warrior woman, and she spends a lot of time trying to explain why there is nothing terribly different about her.

"'You are a terrifying creature,' the Voice told her solemnly. 'You do not take your place in your father's tent, letting men make your decisions. You ride as a man, you fight as a man, and you think as a man-'
'I think as a human being,' she retorted hotly. 'Men don't think any differently from women - they just make more noise about being able to.'"

She ends up adopting two girls who are willing to take a place among men, but in their own ways, which was lovely. They don't jump into the idea of rejecting everything about their culture or about their femininity; they find ways of adapting those portions of themselves into positions that still work with what they have to do. I liked that Alanna was willing to admit that her initial knee-jerk reaction of rejecting all femininity was silly and that she helped to mentor these girls into becoming women who could have the best of both worlds and help their tribe at the same time.

From her time with the Bazhir, Alanna learns the value of her magic. She has been fighting that idea for a long time, fighting the concept of it as being a cheat. She accepted her gift of healing several books ago at this point, but the rest of what she can do has been sitting idle, and she finally gets to exercise it in this book. Teaching other people (and other women) about how to use magic helps her to finally recapture that part of herself.

Jon also gets to do a little bit of growing up in this book, though most of his is negative rather than positive. This is probably his lowest point in the series, and for good reason. Alanna ends up kind of pissed at him, and that is also for good reason. But George is always there to have her back when Jon is acting like a fool, and it is nice to see both of them again and to watch Alanna sort out her feelings for them as an adult and an acknowledged woman.

This is a transition book into the endgame, and it is an enjoyable ride, but not my favorite in the series. It is very focused on character development and on what characters need to learn to make it to and then through the endgame, and thus the pace feels kind of slow. It's a good read, though, and a visit with Alanna is always enjoyable.

"You aren't a bit romantic, are you?" he asked, amused.

She sat back and stared at him. She was beginning to think that Neal required a keeper. He seemed to have the craziest ideas. "Romance? Isn't that love-stuff?" she asked finally.

"It's more than just love. It's color, and--and fire. You don't want things magnificent and filled with--with grandeur," he said, trying to make her understand. "You know, drama. Importance. Transcendent passion."

"I just want to be a knight," Kel retorted, putting her used tableware on her tray. "Eat your vegetables. They're good for you."

I never quite took to Kel the way I took to pretty much any of Tamora Pierce's other heroines, and I think this pretty much sums up why. I don't care about her not having an interest in romance as in boy-girl love stuff (she's a child at this point, and hey, Alanna was super freaked out about the idea for an awfully long time), but her lack of romanticism about anything is very off-putting to me. She has no fire in her, and it makes it hard for me to get attached to her. Even characters I detest are often at least interesting because they have some fire in them.

The plot is intriguing and Tortall itself is always wonderful to visit, but even giving Kel some weaknesses and a fear of heights never quite makes her interesting in the same way other Pierce characters are. I want her to succeed, but only because for her not to would be unfair and because it would cause danger to some of the secondary characters. The "I like it" rating is pretty much exclusively plot-based and because I love Tortall. Were I in the habit of giving half stars (and that is just a can of worms I am not yet ready to open because the binding of the universe might fall apart and also I would have to re-rate everything), I might give it a two and a half instead of a three.

I'm going to go through the rest of the series because although this was my first Tamora Pierce book, it is the only series of hers I have not re-read ever and I am interested in reading everything in order and seeing how it all plays out. I'm not precisely looking forward to it, which is a bit depressing, but I feel like it deserves another chance. Maybe I will find something in it, or in Kel, that will allow it to finally "click" with me. At any rate, it is followed by probably my favorite Tamora Pierce series, and I will finally remember and understand all the little nuggets of information about the characters from this book that I always end up scratching my head about.