Didn't love or hate it

I must start out by saying that Merida is my favorite Disney princess, so my review may be a little biased. What I love about her character (from the film) is that she is not a typical princess, she's fiercely independent, and is a true fiery red-head. In this book, she still had the independence, but some of her fire seemed diminished. She was just meandering through life..

It was hard to tell exactly how long it had been since the time of the film and the events in this book. Between 5-10 is my best guess. The story never really engaged my interest. It felt very slow. Also Elinor's character seemed much different than in the film.

I also had some issues with a few of the Scottish bits.. Long-haired cows are called "hairy coos" in Scotland. With the narration, Feradach sounded more Irish than Scottish, and the way the narrator pronounced McLaggan was bad (MACK-laggen). I also would have enjoyed the narrator POV to also be with a Scottish accent (it was English).

Also, one who plays the harp is a "HARPIST" not a "HARPER". As a musician, this part bugged me a lot.

Overall it was a decent story, but it didn't live up to my expectations.

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Maggie Stiefvater does it again!!!

I love this authors work. Her Raven cycle series is among my favorites but I was skeptical about this sequel to this story line. I’ll just tell you to enjoy the magic for yourself. Don’t miss it! And the narration was lovely.

Why must I binge read?

I loved it, my only complaint is that it was shorter than most books I read so I binge read way to quickly and the next one doesn't have a release date yet!

I loved it.

Wonderful story. I absolutely loved it. The narrator was phenomenal. I definitely recommend this book.

Very Good

The story wasn't exactly what I expected, it was better! The ending was even better than I hoped!

A Great story, where very little happens.

I enjoyed it. But at the same time it's mostly very "slice of medieval life". The action really picks up about half way through the book and there's a good bit of character development, but in the end very little actually happens.
While fun to listen to, it seemed to me Maggie S was not really allowed to go full boat here. It needed to be a story that could fit In between if Disney decided to do an actual film sequel. And the threats that do present themselves (out side of the big over all one) are usually taken care of easily.
I hope we get a sequel in which Merida actually gets to go to war (literally and physically) against a threat that actually be fought against. Merida is a hero who needs a real villain , nemesis to fight against, not just circumstances (her own mess ups ala the Film) and "nature"
But again this was fun story And I recommend it.
The narrator was FANTASTIC! I could listen to her read all day long.

I met Maggie Stiefvater right before listening

Maggie has been one of my all-time favorite authors and inspirations for my own writing for several years now, and getting to meet her at a book talk right before she released Bravely was quite an extraordinary experience. With Bravely, though she is "playing with Disney's toys" instead of her own, her whimsy, humor, and taste for the otherworldly is a brilliant match to Merida's newest adventure, made all the more enjoyable by the re-appearance of narrator Fiona Hardingham who we all know and love as Puck from Stiefvater's Scorpio Races.

Bravely has everything a Disney story should. It sticks closely to the standard story arc and wraps up all the little bows at the end, leaving just one untied to keep us hooked should there be a continuation later. My only complaint is that Maggie may have been tamed by the franchise a little too much, forced to fit her glorious and bizarre imagination a little too neatly into the Disney box. I was (pleasantly?) surprised by how much violence they did actually let her get away with, though. People buried alive at the feet of the love interest... woah. The intensity of the peril makes the stakes feel so much more real, and made me want Merida to succeed far more than if it had been completely PG. ("As long as no horses die, of course")

Hearing Maggie speak of how much of herself she put into this story made Bravely all the richer for me. At her talk, with astonishing eloquence and hilarity, she had described her own personal experience of ruin, and how sometimes a complete razing is necessary to build something anew and better than before. Her personal struggles with her health made this story so tangibly personal and meaningful, and opened my eyes to the ways other characters like Hennessy from the Dreamer trilogy have also received this influence from their maker-- the unfair isolation of struggling with life-altering condition while everyone else walks around carefree. But, as all Disney stories and, really, all good stories do, Bravely landed on an encouraging chord: Change may be painful, but is ultimately beneficial.

The narrator did an absolutely fantastic job with the Scottish accents, particularly Fergus, who felt JUST like he did in the movie. I do hope Disney does Maggie the honor of making the next animation follow the charming god of ruin and of change. I'll end with another paraphrase from Maggie I hope you'll think of when you listen to the intro and outro of Bravely's audiobook:

"When I was a child, my father decided to purchase a set of bagpipes, but not only that, he bought ONE YEAR'S WORTH of lessons to learn how to play. He quickly discovered that no man in his right mind has a year to devote to bagpipe lessons, and so he turned to his children-- there were thousands of us-- and it was not so much that I volunteered, as it was that all of my siblings stepped back and I was the only one left standing before him. I devoted myself to those lessons, though, and let me tell you, a bapgipe is not a musical instrument. Rather, it is a door to hell, and learning how to play is learning how to open the door just enough so that only the sounds you want come out."

about to listen again.

I loved this story! I don't exactly know how to go about explaining what made me so happy without spoiling it. Each trip taken and each side trip to view the new growth provided another story and another step towards the mutual understanding I longed for the characters to reach. I couldn't wait to see where all the characters landed at the end of this book. And of course I wanted more by the end of the book.

Loved it

I absolutely loved it, beginning to end. I hope Maggie decides to do a sequel.