Here's my no nostalgia review. First time reading this book in 2023.

Menolly truly hits PEAK Mary-Sue here. She is good at everything right away. She literally graduates from Bard School in a week. Her only struggle is that all the other girl's just hate her because she's just TOO GOOD. Eyerolled so hard I might hurt myself.

Thankfully we are introduced to some actually interesting characters here. Sebell and Piemur were delightful. However there is a mentally disabled character and he is handled with the amount of delicacy you expect from a novel published in the 70's. SKIP the audiobook. The narrator does a voice for this character that I just couldn't handle. They did the bare minimum of not using the Hard R word here.

Despite that, Bard School is actually really interesting. We explore the kinds of classes and lessons it takes to mold young students into Harpers. I had a great time exploring more of Pern and the world building. Paired with the 2 albums for this series, it continues to make the Harper Series worth reading.