Books

I went back recently and reread Arrows of the Queen from the Heralds of Valdemar series. I remember being absolutely in love with this series when I was a young teen. After rereading it, I was surprised to find the world building still held up. It's a little silly to get sparkly eyed over magical justice horses but, hey, it's still a fun fantasy.

The writing in general doesn't hold up as well as I remember. Not that it's bad--but events moved at a much faster clip than I had remembered them doing. I could have sworn there was a lot more time and attention paid to certain events that wound up taking about a chapter or so to resolve. There was also a lot more references to historical events than I remembered--in such a way that stuck out to me as odd, since this was the first book in publication order if I'm not mistaken. But they were very "Oh yeah remember when Herald So and So did Thing?" and it definitely feels like a mid-series book in that regard.

And Talia, though sweet, did have a bit of a "Everyone loves her and she's too good, too pure for this sinful world" about her that got a little tiresome towards the end.

So--either what are some of your experiences rereading old YA classics. Or, alternatively, how did you feel about this series at whatever point in your reading lifetime?