Inkspot Fancy

I wish I'd liked this book as much as I did the first, but it unfortunately felt like a little bit of a letdown, possibly partly because of the weight of stories published after it but which I read before this, in the same way Lord of the Rings feels cliche at times.In tone, it's just as delightful and fun as the first book, and we get another nice cross section of people, both in personality and in type. The stuff with the fire lizards could be a bit harrowing but was mostly enchanting.But... well, there's no nice way to say this. Our heroine felt like a Mary Sue on a very fundamental level. She's good at literally everything, and great at some things. Almost everyone likes her, and those who don't are either jealous bullies who the other good characters also don't like, or come around by the end of the book. She accomplishes a massive amount in a very small time frame - so small even the story remarks on it - all while worrying about things that never really present actual trouble for her and denigrating her own abilities to an understandable but by the end irritating level.By the time the book wrapped up, I was thoroughly ready for The End. this is not to say this is a bad book. It's lovely (and so unusual as to be refreshing) to read about music in a fantasy story rendered with so much attention to detail as someone who's actually familiar with music. And I still very much like Menolly.I just wish I felt like her struggles were more... struggly.