I was hoping this would be sort of a Lady Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader story, but perhaps the publisher wouldn't let Garth Nix go full-on tragedy with it. There's a disconnect between the end of this book and the form we next see Clariel take in the series. And, I mean, 300 years do pass in between, but it seems to me that it would've made more sense for this book to have set us up for Chlorr of the Mask a little more smoothly. 
 I was also hoping for the dragon bit to go a little differently, but ah well. At least there was a dragon, sort of. 
 These books aren't the best of the best--the characters aren't the most compelling and the antagonists are usually paper thin--but something about them is really fun. The talking animals, the relative gender equality, the magic system. I liked that this book went into more detail about how the magic system works and what it looks and feels like. I was skeptical about whether it would be worth it to read a prequel that takes place so long before the main Abhorsen story, but it was definitely worth it for the extra insight and for the different, semi-tragic thrust of this particular chapter. The new berserk element was also fun, and I appreciated that this book didn't include any of the real-world/military stuff that's in the others. Read it if you like the series.