Song of the Wanderer

Song of the Wanderer is the much anticipated (by me, anyway) sequel to Brian Coville's Into the Land of the Unicorns. It follows Cara's journey to reunite with her grandmother, last seen in the first chapter of the first book, and bring her back to Luster. She sets out from the Queen's court with a decent-sized group that keeps growing larger over the course of her journey, until she eventually finds her grandmother, has a tense confrontation with Beloved, hater and hunter of the Unicorns, and makes it safely back to the Queen's court.

The group Cara travels with is a bit unwieldy, and some of the characters end up getting the shaft. Two of the unicorns are just barely sketched out, more caricatures than actual characters. I was beyond excited when the Dimblethum returned, as he was by far my favorite character in the first book. I was less enthralled by the gryphon, who does the too-cute I'm not actually cussing because this is a children's book thing.

Overall the book was satisfying, pretty much exactly what I wanted from the sequel to a beloved children's book. Now that I've gotten over my fear of it being horrible or letting me down, I'll have to track down the rest of the series. I just have to see Beloved finally defeated and I still want to know why the Dimblethum feels so unwelcome among the unicorns. And now I'm hoping we get a gate into the dragon world, so that Ebillan can be reunited with his lost love. And so we can see more dragons, of course.

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