Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons book review

For me, Miss Percy’s can best be described as ‘fine’ despite its components being largely strong: the prose is strong, the main character is well defined with a fare bit of complexity, and I usually very much enjoy period pieces. Even the pacing, which is superficially part of why i didn’t enjoy the book more, is organic and believable. The primary issue I found with the book is it composition and its protagonists fundamental core flaw.
Miss Percy is an aging, overly compliant spinster, struggling to exert herself in any way upon the world and often bullied by life and her younger sister. This is a core, intentional, flaw of her correct, and much of the narrative is devoted to her slowly surmounting it, but it is a flaw that deprives her of agency. She is not entirely bereft of agency, as most of the decisions that drive the plot forward are hers, but they are clandestine decisions and often made under subterfuge, so that much of the fun/enjoyment/interest that I as a reader would incur from a character making a major decision is absent. This is where the composition and pacing elements come in, there is almost no major conflict (which does not have to be violent in nature) in roughly the first half of the book. Mildred actively avoids all potential conflicts. It is not that objects of interest do not happen, but many of them were/are foregone conclusions or simply irrelevant, or too soft to truly compel interest. The birth of our dragon Fitz is spoiled in the books title, Reginald as the antagonist initiates no real threat or conflict until the latter half of the narrative despite having chapters devoted to him, and any of the affront or bullying Mildred experiences are simply ignored due to her lack of internal force/agency.
The book improves significantly in the second half of the book and Mildred begins her character arc in earnest, developing and engaging in her agency in the open and experiencing more up front conflict and actively confronting it instead of wilting. She makes active strides to improve her situation and, by the books conclusion, the author gives both her and the reader something to look forward to.
The last casualty of the narrative’s composition is the period setting, by the nature and intent of her character, Mildred is un-interactive, meaning that she glides along the periphery of society without ever really interacting with it. The societal rules, restrictions, pomp, and pageantry simply do not affect her overly much as society largely does not care about her. Even her romance is largely situational rather than a courtship, thus much of what I find interesting about a period piece is left untouched.