“Talking to Dragons” by Patricia Wrede

So my partner and I FINALLY finished this book and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I talked about the first, second, and third books a while ago, and we did start this book then, but then we went back to the fall semester of school and that prolonged absolutely everything we wanted to do.

This book is different from the others in that it’s entirely written from the first person perspective. The narrator is Cimorene’s son, Daystar. He leaves home with a mysterious sword and goes into the Enchanted Forest. There he meets a fire witch Shiara and a baby dragon (specified as too young to have chosen a gender or a name). In the forest he meets all of our old friends one by one. First there’s the witch Morwen who helps Shiara out by giving her a kitten, then the wizard Telemund, and finally Kazul the dragon at the castle. And of course the wizards are met along the way as they attempt to cause trouble. Once at the castle, Kazul knows exactly what to do which is to start a battle with the wizards while Daystar uses the sword to get into the castle and free the king. Of course they’re successful, and everyone is reunited!

I was surprised how this book is quite different from the others. There’s the narration style, and also the time jump of seventeen years since the end of the previous book. I think though, that this results in a very satisfying ending. You don’t feel as though the author is simply retreading past ground, she’s trying out different things and using it to pull all of the remaining threads together.

I was frustrated a bit by the setup of the book. The idea is that King Mendelbar has been stuck in the castle, and the only option is to wait for Daystar to grow up and free him. It is specified that Cimorene has been trying every other option to get him out, but the other characters seem pretty resigned. Which is rough, and also begs the question of what have they been doing for seventeen whole years??

If you accept that though, this is a fun book. You get to meet all of the old characters and see what they’ve been up to, while meeting some fun new ones. I’m a big fan of the baby dragon and the shenanigans they get up to, and the talkative lizard Suz who pops up now and again. It’s a cute story, really well done for what it is, and definitely had a good time going through it together.