Closer to 3.5 stars . Almost DNFed it, glad I didn’t. Second half of the book was much better and more fast-paced than the first. Really liked the setting and plot, but characters and the romantic relationship in this book were mostly questionable if not really bad. Although the author is a woman, it feels very much written with a chauvinistic male gaze, which might be attributed to the time this was first published. From todays perspective large parts of the dialogue and character interaction made me cringe. Read this just after reading the Fourth Wing series an feel like Rebecca Yarrows must have been inspired by if not heavily borrowing from Dragonriders of Pern.

2 Stars is being charitable. I want to be charitable to this book, and that is why I am giving it two stars, but to be honest I cannot remember the last time I completed a book that I have such a low score two. Usually I DNF them will before. There are definitely some good elements, Lessa is absolutely a character I could get behind. Sadly the book let's get down. I know it's written in a different era (53 years ago at the time of writing this.) but this is no excuse. My main issue with it is the romance between Lessa and F'lar. I'm sure at one point he was effectively raping her! But by the end Lessa was within pages of each other, worried he was going to physically harm her, abs then melting into his embrace (said embrace being the first time she seems to explicitly consent! I know this book has a list of fans, and it means a lot to some people. That's ok. I'm now in two minds about whether I want to continue with the series. If I hadn't read the Harper Hall series set in the same world, I doubt I would. If I do it would most likely be from an anthropological stance.