by Robin McKinley
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.”
I love Robin McKinley, I really do. And so I hate to say that I didn’t finish this book. I wanted to finish this book. I wanted to love, or at least like, this book. But I just didn’t.
The concept is interesting: McKinley imagines a world where pegasi are a species of intelligent beings, with language and culture and kings, but fragile ones. So, they make a pact with the humans for protection. They will bond the ruling humans and pegasi together in exchange for keeping the land safe. The only problem is that they need magicians to communicate.
That is, until princess Sylvi bonds with her pegasus, Ebon. They can talk, not just bits and snatches that they come to understand, but really communicate. And, of course (though I never really could figure out why), this causes all sorts of problems.
Honestly? I got bogged down in the setting up of the world. I was halfway through the book, and the story hadn’t hardly started. It was history, it was world building, and while it was interesting, it wasn’t engaging. I wanted it to be. But at some point, I realized it just wasn’t working for me. So, I skipped around and read the ending. Which, if that’s the end ending, it’s just wrong. It’s a horrible ending, and if I had invested even more time in the book, I would have been more upset.
As it was, I was just disappointed. I suppose even Robin McKinley can’t win them all.
The Book Nut 
This one is waiting in my TBR pile. Yours is not the first negative reaction I've read, which makes me reluctant to read it. And I HATE that, because I'm such a big Robin Mckinley fan. On a more positive note, I heard that she's departing from her normal stand-alone format, and Pegasus is the first of a trilogy.
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As a Robin McKinley fan, I read the negative reviews of this book with a heavy heart. I still bought it, and I will still read it because Robin wrote it. Too, bad it's not as good as her older books- The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, Spindle's End, Rose Daughter, etc.
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What a shame. I am a fan of McKinley too, and was looking forward to reading this one. Guess I will check it out from the library first.
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Man, I took a chance on this book and now I don't want to read it… Good thing it was just the library. I will wait until the buzz about it dies down and then see what I think, I guess.
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Yeah, now my expectations of the book have gone down again. I've heard many people say this, and it makes me feel sad. I love McKinley, though I didn't like another of her more recent works either. I will probably still give it a chance, but not expect as much.
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