"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.
Rating: 3/5
