This book made me feel. It made me feel angry, annoyed, happy, warm, sad,… All in a good way. I was either smiling or frowning whenever I was reading it and I love it when books do that to me. Isn’t that why we all read? It deserves 5 stars from me.
Another subscription box book of which I had no Idea what it was about. When I started it, I even thought for a minute that this would be a contemporary. I mean, it starts with Dani and her best friend when they are in high school, so I was a bit confused. When Dani gets home however, I finally realized that this was an urban fantasy because they have a training barn with a freaking dragon skull hanging on the wall. To give you the background information I didn’t read before I started the book, I’ll try and give a brief synopsis.
Dani and Eden are sisters, born to a family of dragon slayers. Whilst Eden is set on improving on her battle technique and doing everything perfectly, Dani cares more about her normal life as a teenager. Dani’s normal life gets interrupted when she bonds with a dragon. The sisters each go a different way and have to find their way back to each other to fight the bigger evil.
“If we aren’t careful, we’ll find ourselves back in the middle ages, with a dragon for every city.”
I really enjoyed getting into this story. After reading a bunch of adult high fantasy, this was a welcome change of scenery.
Eden and Dani are sisters, raised from a family of dragon slayers. Even though they are very different, I found them both to be very relatable. Eden always feels like she isn’t enough. Not good enough at her training, not good enough to go on missions with her parents, not good enough to be trained by sorcerers, not good enough to compete with her sister. She always wants to do everything perfectly, but she never feels the appreciation for it. It was sad to read about what she’s going through and frustrating to see the decisions she makes as a result of it. Dani on the other hand is dealing with a whole different set of issues. The first girl she ever kissed (and who then ran off right after) is back in town and Dani doesn’t know how to deal with it. At the same time, she is bonded with a freaking dragon which puts her in an awkward position, no longer knowing where she belongs. With her dragon-slaying family or should she stand up for the dragons, who don’t seem as bad as she was made to believe. She is trying to combine all this whilst still doing her summer job and trying to have fun with her best friends. There are some wholesome scenes when she is just living her ‘normal’ life and I absolutely loved it. The side characters Thomás, Sadie and Kieran also added a great amount of depth to the story. And then there are of course the dragons. O how Nox has stolen my hard. The way he could be really stubborn, just like Dani, but also make so many jokes with all of his unknowingness about the world and technology.
“Dani was talented and special, but what was Eden? Firstborn and second best.”
That is another thing that was done incredibly well: the integration of current technology in the fantasy plot line. I’m not going to say too much, because spoilers, but I found it all to be very smart to incorporate it in this way.
As for the plot, I don’t think I have anything negative to say about it. It might have dragged a tiny bit at some point, but I was all in when reading this and just didn’t want to put it down. The way that the fantastical places were written, was incredibly vivid to me and I was marveled with it, just as much as the characters. I loved every second of it and can see myself rereading this book in the future and maybe even recommending it to my kids if I ever have them.
I hope you enjoyed this book just as much as I did. And please do let me know if there are other books that gave you similar feelings, because I just need more…..
Cheers!
Charlotte
The Fantastical World of Reading 