Dreamer's Pool
Another good book by Juliet Marillier, I didn't enjoy Dreamer's Pool quite as much as her YA stuff but it was still very good. I started out reading a copy from the library but ended up listening to the Audible version in the car with the family on a road trip. They all enjoyed it. This is an adult book, and we have young teens so there was one small part that we skipped over because of content. I wasn't too crazy about the voice actor for Grim at first. I thought he was pretty awful for a while, but got used to him eventually. I do have a hard time listening to audio books sometimes because the voices don't always match up with the way I imagine them.
While this is a fantasy that includes the fey it isn't loaded with those elements. That is the main difference in this book and her YA books I've read. It focused mostly on the human characters and left the fey mostly background. As this is a series I'm sure we will get a lot more of the fey in later books. I'm looking forward to finding out what Conmael's motivation is.
I think the character growth and the lessons different characters learned about the consequences of their actions were the best things about this book. In the beginning Blackthorn is so bitter and bent on revenge and I can sympathize with how she feels, however it was nice to see her eventually soften up a little. I think I liked the character of Grim more and I found it interesting that he, the one everyone thought of as slow, was the one that ended up figuring out the whole "mystery". I'm very curious about his past and hope we get to learn more in the next book.
In the beginning I wasn't too crazy about Prince Oran but eventually grew to really like him as a character. He tried to do the right things but was also human and made mistakes. He never ran away from his mistakes or blamed them on others, but accepted responsibility for them.
The whole family is looking forward to listening to the next book in the series. My husband rates it 3.5 stars, knocking half a star off because of Blackthorn's stupidity at one point. My daughter's give it 4.5 and 3.5 stars.
