rachelmanija (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija) wrote2018-05-11 10:13 am
rachelmanija) wrote2018-05-11 10:13 am
FF Friday: Pegasi and Prefects, by Eleanor Beresford
Welcome to FF Friday! If you want to join in, just review something FF on a Friday; the tag has more details.
Pegasi and Prefects is a girls’ boarding school book in the tradition of Enid Blyton, plus magic, magical beasts, and girls explicitly in love with girls. As opposed to a great many other books in the genre in which girls are implicitly in love with girls.
Charlotte “Charley” comes from a magical animal ranch in Australia, owns a fiery pegasus named Ember (except when he’s typo’d Ebony), has the magical Gift of communicating with mythic animals (including, intriguingly, the non-sentient… or are they?... fairies), and is in a state of naivete/denial about her attraction to girls and lack of such to boys, though literally everyone else at school is well aware of this. In her homophobic world, it’s forbidden, though some people are more understanding than others and she’s not the only one.
When part-elf Rosalind transfers in, along with an extra-homophobic mean girl Charley gets saddled with as a roommate, Charley falls for Rosalind and is forced to face her desires. Charley and Rosalind ride pegasi and unicorns, and rescue an injured alicorn foal, which they must keep secret as it apparently escaped from hunters who have the legal right to it. Meanwhile, the homophobic mean girl is mean and homophobic, one of Charley’s other friends is clearly in love with her, and there is a lot of talk of exciting games but a suspicious lack of detail on them, to the point where I was often not sure what game they were even playing at any given point.
While the details of the magical creatures and the world are inventive and charming, the horse-mad pair of Wilhelmina “Bill” and Clarissa from Blyton’s Malory Towers worked better as a subtextual romance for me than the textual longing of pegasus-mad heroine Charley for alicorn-mad Rosalind in this book. They were fun while interacting with or discussing their hooved friends, but a bit dull otherwise.
I was WAY more into the “rescue the alicorn” and “ride the magical horsies” parts of the book than I was into literally anything else: the romance, the games, the homophobia, or the WTF bit where Charley decides the best solution to her troubles is to get Rosalind to marry her (Charley’s) brother so at least she’d still be in Charley’s life. I realize that this last plot point was also in Hamilton, but all I can say is that Hamilton did a better job of selling it.
I wish I’d read Pegasi and Prefects when I was ten. I bet I would have adored it. Back then I would forgive any flaw if there were pegasi involved, and Charley’s inability to see what was under her nose would have been more sympathetic and less annoying. I’d rec this to a kid if they were into the tropes, but the clunky writing style, distracting typos, and tedium of many of the scenes not involving magical animals are likely to be more of a dealbreaker for adults.
It ends with a “to be continued” rather than any story resolution, though Charley has at least admitted that she’s in love with Rosalind. There is a second book and a prequel, but though there seems to have been a third book planned, it doesn’t exist and I’m not sure whether or not it’s forthcoming.
Pegasi and Prefects is a girls’ boarding school book in the tradition of Enid Blyton, plus magic, magical beasts, and girls explicitly in love with girls. As opposed to a great many other books in the genre in which girls are implicitly in love with girls.
Charlotte “Charley” comes from a magical animal ranch in Australia, owns a fiery pegasus named Ember (except when he’s typo’d Ebony), has the magical Gift of communicating with mythic animals (including, intriguingly, the non-sentient… or are they?... fairies), and is in a state of naivete/denial about her attraction to girls and lack of such to boys, though literally everyone else at school is well aware of this. In her homophobic world, it’s forbidden, though some people are more understanding than others and she’s not the only one.
When part-elf Rosalind transfers in, along with an extra-homophobic mean girl Charley gets saddled with as a roommate, Charley falls for Rosalind and is forced to face her desires. Charley and Rosalind ride pegasi and unicorns, and rescue an injured alicorn foal, which they must keep secret as it apparently escaped from hunters who have the legal right to it. Meanwhile, the homophobic mean girl is mean and homophobic, one of Charley’s other friends is clearly in love with her, and there is a lot of talk of exciting games but a suspicious lack of detail on them, to the point where I was often not sure what game they were even playing at any given point.
While the details of the magical creatures and the world are inventive and charming, the horse-mad pair of Wilhelmina “Bill” and Clarissa from Blyton’s Malory Towers worked better as a subtextual romance for me than the textual longing of pegasus-mad heroine Charley for alicorn-mad Rosalind in this book. They were fun while interacting with or discussing their hooved friends, but a bit dull otherwise.
I was WAY more into the “rescue the alicorn” and “ride the magical horsies” parts of the book than I was into literally anything else: the romance, the games, the homophobia, or the WTF bit where Charley decides the best solution to her troubles is to get Rosalind to marry her (Charley’s) brother so at least she’d still be in Charley’s life. I realize that this last plot point was also in Hamilton, but all I can say is that Hamilton did a better job of selling it.
I wish I’d read Pegasi and Prefects when I was ten. I bet I would have adored it. Back then I would forgive any flaw if there were pegasi involved, and Charley’s inability to see what was under her nose would have been more sympathetic and less annoying. I’d rec this to a kid if they were into the tropes, but the clunky writing style, distracting typos, and tedium of many of the scenes not involving magical animals are likely to be more of a dealbreaker for adults.
It ends with a “to be continued” rather than any story resolution, though Charley has at least admitted that she’s in love with Rosalind. There is a second book and a prequel, but though there seems to have been a third book planned, it doesn’t exist and I’m not sure whether or not it’s forthcoming.
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On the plus side, my library *does* have Labyrinth Lost, so I've got that on order right now.
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(It is AMAZING what my degree has done for "okay but the point isn't would I like it NOW, it's, would I have liked it when I was ELEVEN".)
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