This review was originally written and posted in November 2013.

GUYS GUYS IT’S THAT TIME!  *dance and throw confetti*

Unfortunately, and through no fault of the author (I don’t think), the book does not start off on the best foot.  Before we get to the first word of the story, we get one of those gorgeous fantasy maps that shows where our story will be set and everyone gets get and excited looking at it and “oh, cool, I wonder what will happen and what all these places will turn out to be” and then:

Well, not to name point any fingers or anything, but thanks for giving away the ending, Steve.

Because this book was basically written for fans and not new readers, it has very little introduction for the characters.  I have no problem with this, because I am a fan, but I’ll stop for a moment to catch you guys up:

Four kids with special magic and attitude problems all got rescued from various bad situations and sent to a temple.  It works out to be less Sue in practice than it sounds in summary, mostly because of how the rest of the world reacts to it.  “You have a special talent?  Well, off to the magnet school that deals with that sort of stuff.”  Once they get there, they’re treated as fairly normal students who just have a slightly harder time socializing and need a safer place to live than the dorms. Their magics accidently get combined, which results in wonkiness and also the fact that they can all be telepathic with each other (unless they’re super far away like they are at the start of this book).  They have a quartet of adventures when they’re all 10-11.  Three of them leave for various travels around the world, Sandry stays home, and at about the age of 14 they each get their own individual adventure that sorta is more traumatizing than the ones they had together, so there’s that.

Sandraline fa Toren (Sandry) is a noble and the niece of the guy who rules the country all this takes place in.  She’s super rich and doesn’t care.  Her parents were loving, but negligent, until they died in a plague and she was sent to live with her uncle/at the temple.  She’s sassy and idealistic and I luffs her.  She does magic with thread and weaving.

Briar Moss is an orphan who used to be homeless and part of a gang and he was arrested various times for doing gang-related things.  Before he got sent to the “no, you really fucked up now and we’re going to be mean about it” jail, someone popped up and went “wait, he’s got magic, COME ALONG, BOY, LERNIN TIME FOR YOU! :D” to which Briar said “dafuq is this shit?” but he’s better now.  He does magic with plants.

Trisana Chandler (Tris) is from a merchant family, but her magic was uncontrollable when she was little and also a lot flashier than the other kids so her family was “ACK, WHAT DO WE DO?” only instead of being nice about it they were more “you deal with it” “no you deal with” “I know, MAKE STRANGERS DEAL WITH IT!” so that made her all surly and have trust issues, but she’s better now.  To a certain point.  She does magic with weather (whether she wants to or not, sometimes).

Daja Kisubo used to be a Trader – a very insular group of people who do nothing but trade stuff and they have nifty customs but also some hefty racism going both ways – until her ship sank and her whole family drowned and she got kicked out of the society for having bad luck.  But then she also did mega cool stuff for them later, so they’re cool with her again.  She’s a total deadpan snarker and I luffs her too and she does magic with metal/smithing.

The book opens on Sandry’s 16th birthday, as she’s sad that her sisters and brother aren’t around to celebrate and she can’t even talk to them via magic.  Instead, as her only present that day, she gets a giant book of financial reports from her cousin/estate manager.  She tries to think charitably about the whole issue – she does have friends and family still around to birthday with, they’re just not her super-tight-close sisters and brother – but it’s really hard when tax reports are boring.

She tolerated no wayward behavior in any cloth in her presence.  Her stockings never dared escape their garters, any more than her gowns dared to pick up dirt.

Because that’s just the kind of person Sandry is.  Everyone behaves around her, or they’ll get a sassy scolding!  She’s not going to take any of your shit, stockings.

I love how, in these books, stuff always gets anthropomorphized around the kid that has magic with it.  It’s always in minor things like “misbehaving” skirts and only around the kids that have magic with them, though.  Daja’s clothes don’t have opinions around her, and Sandry’s flowers don’t either.

Duke Verdis comes in and basically guilts her into doing her homework anyway.  We find out that she’s been taking over a lot of administrative tasks from Verdis because he had a heart attack a couple of years ago and she doesn’t want to stress him, but she’s rather “ugh, I don’t get warm altruistic fuzzies from my own taxes.”  Verdis points out that’s pretty shity.

If anyone was going to be a Sue/Stu in these books, I’d say it’s Verdis.  He’s always perfectly composed, always right, and he’s got that whole “but not too much fashion, and that makes it better” kind of look that we got from Cinna.  But he’s also barely in this book, so eh.  Maybe he has flaws off-page somewhere.

We skip ahead a few months and to Daja’s POV.  She and her teacher Frostpine are on their way home from world-traveling, and as Daja waxes poetical (or as close as Daja ever gets to poetics) about all the creature comforts of home, Frostpine goes “oh, shit, forgot to tell you.  You’re too old to live at school for free now.  And, also, you kind of ‘graduated’ so there’s that, too.”

Daja gets upset about this, because she considers her cottage at the temple to be home/family, and she’s got issues with her whole family drowning and all that.  And then…she gets mad at Sandry?  Because Sandry didn’t “warn” her that this would happen (even though it’s a rule that they all knew about) and Daja starts thinking “ugh, Sandry will want us all to live with her like charity cases.”

So…

1. I’m losing my family!
2. My sister will want me to live with her.
3. ???
4. Ugh, family, what a drag.

Daja, babe, I love you to bits and pieces, but what just happened?

Also, Daja and Briar are both wealthy at this point, so I’m not sure why she thinks her only options are “Sandry’s charity case” and “I have no one.”  In fact, in the very next scene, she buys a pretty sweet house for herself and even stocks it with furniture and servants.  I get some shock at having to move out of your childhood home earlier than expected and not getting a period of transition, but the anger and “woe to me” that she displays the rest of the book was really not set up well here.

Sandry comes on by to be all “wtf, girl, I don’t even get an invite to your new place?”

“Tell you so you might offer me charity, or so His Grace might offer me charity?  How long until that charity ran out, and I was left on my own again, Sandry?  First I lose my family, then the Traders, then Winding Circle.  I need my own place.  A home no one can take from me.”

You’re rich enough to buy your own house straight-up within two weeks of arriving back in town.  I understand the second part of that quote, but I’m still confused as hell on all this talk of charity.  And it’s not like Sandry and Verdis have a history of being patronizing toward her or the other two.

They have a confusing fight that basically boils down to “well I’m not going to be telepathic with you because you’re not telepathic with me so there!”

Then we time skip to the next summer, and Tris has just arrived home!  She at least knows what to expect, so she’s prepared to settle all the leftover baggage she got traveling and go see if she can live with Daja.  Tris’s deal is that she can do super-hard magic now.  She’s always been able to hear voices on the wind as a part of being a weather-mage, but now she can see visions on it, too, which is so hard to learn that lots of people think it’s actually impossible and either don’t believe she can do it or else accuse her of spying with it.

So she up and assumes her sisters will do the same and joins the “no telepathy” club.

Yeah, by the end of the book, the rest of the kids join me in the “why? that’s dumb” reaction.

She gets to the house, and in the intervening eight months it seems Sadry and Daja have made up enough to at least act like normal non-mind-sharing good friends.  They’re both there to welcome Tris home.

“I’ll be your housekeeper, Daja,” she said abruptly.  “Not a charity case.  I’ll earn my keep.”

Sandry and Daja looked at each other.  Suddenly they – and the look of exasperation they shared – were very familiar.

“Same old Tris,” they chorused.

Tris scowled.  “I mean it.”

So, for all I do complain about this section a lot, this is where Tamora Pierce really shines.  The way she can show off exactly how a relationship dynamic works and how well this trio of sisters know each other and their personalities and do it all in just a few lines and with humor.  Even when they’re fighting, they’re still family and still love each other and still anticipate each other because they know each other so well and still are accepting and just alskdjfsla;kjfsd;fasjkldf they’re SO CUTE AND I WAN TO HUG THEM ALL.

Also, Tris has a magic dragon made of glass named Chime.  It’s a long story.

Another eight months go by and we skip over to Briar’s POV.  He’s at the temple and expecting to spent a few nights there just recouping from his mega-long trip, but in the middle of the night he has nightmares and freaks out because the temple bells are triggering him.  Seems he was in a big war on his trip and part of that spent in a temple of the same faith and so all the similarities going on are just bringing up really bad memories.  (Spoiler from Battle Magic: yeah, not so much happened in any temple, actually.  There’s a lot of inconsistencies between the two books, and I like WotE’s version better, even though it’s only hinted at.)

Rosethorn (his teacher + was also in that war) comes out to reassure him and also suggest that he go see this universe’s version of a psychiatrist, but he gives the standard answer of someone who has a socially-ingrained aversion to mental health help.  He also doesn’t want to tell the girls about it, because he thinks they’d smother him with the wrong kind of help and not understand in general make things worse.  (Which I can say from experience is about half something that really happens and half something you just think is happening because you can’t realize that you actually need it.)

In short, Briar’s excuse for keeping his mind locked up tight is the only one that makes sense to me.  But the other reason’s aren’t bad, just weird.  Much like in Animorphs last year, the stuff I don’t like about this book is more just a headscratcher instead of something harmful or rage-y.

So, since he can’t stay at the temple without being triggered, Briar heads over to Daja’s place the next day.  Tris sees him coming on the wind and puts his favorite cookies in to bake so they’ll be ready for him when he gets home because ADORABLE, OKAY? 

All the siblings get together for dinner and are JUST SO GODAMN CUTE and bantery and such and fussing over Briar being too thin from his travels and teasing Tris about scaring away all the cooks because she has to have things just so in “her” kitchen and alksdjf;alsdjfsdklfja ADORABLE, OKAY?

But even though they’re all together again, it’s just not like it used to be, and this makes Tris sad as she’s off in her kitchen pouring tea.

She put down the teapot and slid her fingers behind her spectacles to wipe away tears.  When she could see again, Daja had taken charge of the teapot.

“Things change,” Daja said softly.  “We change with them.  We sail before the wind.  We become adults.  As adults, we keep our minds and our secrets hidden, and our wounds.  It’s safer.”

So, the opening chapter in one of my favorite books: I actually don’t like it.  It’s cluttered and jumps around a lot and tries to do a hell of a lot of set-up in not enough time.  The content is well and good, and of course I always will love these characters, it’s just the structure that I’m not feeling.  I’m not really sure what would have been a better thing, though.  I mean, the book is about the drama of going to Namorn and dealing with all the shitfuckery going on there, so I wouldn’t want this to get dragged out into taking up more of the book.  I guess, maybe, if we’d had just a longer version of that last scene?  Everyone coming together again and showing it being not quite right because they’ve grown apart and they’re awkward and have secrets now?  It still would have been pretty sparse, but so was this method, and at least it would have been cohesive.  After all, a lot of the details we got in here were things like “a page about how Tris left two characters we’ll never see again at the temple.”  Um…necessary?

Ah, well, now that everything is awkwardly set up, ON TO THE DRAMA!