Received from the LibraryThing's Early Reviewer January 2013 batch.

Book 1 of The Meri cycle finds the 15 year old Meredydd as the only female "prentice" in a male dominated religious Academy, learning to become a priest. Objections at her existence, which is starting to disrupt and distract the other students and teachers, forces the decision to make her pilgrimage to find The Meri earlier than many believe she's ready.

There are definite allusions to both state religion and the fear of witches (Wicke) and the belief that whilst people can worship a female incarnation of Godhead, a woman cannot be a disciple/priest of the same.

Much of the book is dedicated to the pilgrimage, and how Meredydd faces the three challenges put to her in her dreams. Mere seems to "let go" of some things really easily - her friend Leal and the Wisdom crystal are released with nary a second thought which is a shame.

The result of the pilgrimage is almost predictable, but no worse for that, and ties in nicely with the overall philosophy of the story ( )

Not bad, but somewhat pointless - what, every female is going to be taken? None of them allowed to go out and teach others? Also - this is personal to me - with the very Celtic names, I was expecting it to be a retelling of Celtic myth - and so few of those end well for the characters. So I was kind of wincing every time she made a choice (is this the one that will make everything go bad?) and since the whole story is about her making choices, it made it rather hard to read. I suppose I will read Taminy - I might as well get the fuller story - but the world and the characters don't particularly excite me. ( )

The Meri is a book that follows the unlikely pilgrimage and spiritual awakening of Mereddyd, a orphan girl in a world where spirituality is a man's demesne. It's one of those books that you'll either love or not with little middle ground in between. For me, unfortunately the latter was the case, as I very much wanted to like this book.

The novel is at time overly self conscious, and in places runs long where Bohnoff waxes lyrical on spiritual matters which can become confusing, and distract the reader from the story. The premise is a very good one, and the spiritual messages and lessons are strong. However, the become lost amid rambling passage and language adopted seemingly for effect to give the novel an 'otherworldly' or 'older' feel, but which has the effect of taking the reader out of the story while they work out what said unfamiliar words mean. All in all I wish the story could have been more consise to give greater impact to what could have been an excellent and unique tale. ( )

YA fantasy novel, with a Celtic/pagan/Christian spiritual/religious angle. Part of a trilogy that I was originally given review copies of back in the 1990s; recently I was also given a review copy of an electronic re-release of The Meri (the first book in the series) through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

I will say up front that the spiritual journey novel is not my thing. This is a fantasy spin on the themes, but the religious angle is pretty close to the surface. The other big angle in the book, about a young girl facing sexism and oppression from her religious community, IS my thing. So for that, it was a quick read, although I balked a bit at the spirituality. But if you enjoyed both Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, and Tamora Pierce’s Alanna and sequels, then this might hit your sweet spot.

I received an electronic copy of this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. ( )

A thoroughly enjoyable and artfully written fantasy novel! I loved the main character and her growth throughout the story, as well as the secondary characters, who were rather well-developed. A few things were predictable, but I didn't mind. My only real complaint is that it needs more editing, as there were several typos. ( )