Bravely, by Maggie Stiefvater, is a follow-up YA novel to the 2012 Pixar movie Brave. It follows Merida, who discovers that Feradach, a god of destruction tasked with rooting out stagnation, is planning on destroying her home kingdom. She bargains for a year to get her family to change to try and avoid this death sentence. Meanwhile, the family is trying to avoid conscription or attack by a human warlord-type person. The remainder of the book is divided into a series of trips in which Merida is hypothetically serving as an ambassador for her kingdom, but is really trying to bring about character growth in whichever of her family members is accompanying her.

It was okay. I liked Brave well enough, but it was never my favorite Disney Princess movie, so I wasn’t terribly invested going in. Stiefvater’s writing is usually pretty hit-or-miss for me, so I knew there was a chance I would be disappointed, and indeed I was.

I will say that the characters are all wonderful. Stiefvater does a really good job giving each of Merida’s family members distinct personalities and individual struggles. The triplets all get to be separate characters, which was interesting to see, and I particularly enjoyed Elinor’s backstory, as well as the introduction of Leezie, a head-in-the-clouds servant who has become a part of Merida’s family to the extent that she calls her her sister.

I’m not sure how I feel about the world-building. On the one hand, I had absolutely no idea what was going on with the human wars at any point in the book. There was absolutely not enough background for me to understand it, and it also felt like a completely unnecessary plot=line regardless; I don’t think it added to the story. On the other hand, it’s a very atmospheric book, and I really enjoyed the setting in medieval Scotland, the different distinct kingdoms that Merida visits, and the overall treatment of magic in the story.

I think my main issue with this was the plot structure. It almost felt like a short story collection more than a single novel, since it was basically divided into three disconnected journeys. It just didn’t feel lie a cohesive book, and there wasn’t enough of a continuous storyline to make me feel that invested. This is especially disappointing because Maggie Stiefvater is usually so good a plot, but this part of the book just really was not working for me.

One thing I will say is that I think the outrage surrounding Merida having some semblance of a romance in this book is absolutely absurd. I’m demisexual, and I do get very attached to ace-coded characters, but I have never considered Merida to be one of those characters. Like, not wanting to get married in your mid-teens to one of three very bad options is absolutely not the same thing as ace-aro-coding, so acting like Merida is a canonically acearo character that Maggie Stiefvater is desecrating is completely absurd.

Overall, Bravely was fairly enjoyable. If you’re a Maggie Stiefvater superfan or a fan of the movie, then definitely give it a shot. If you like Brave, you’ll like this; I just don’t think I was enough of a fan of the movie to get invested enough in the book to overlook the plot structure issues. I’m giving Bravely 3.5/5 stars.