Reviews

The Color of Dragons by Erika Lewis, R.A. Salvatore

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fscottfishgerald's review against another edition

3.0

The Color of Dragons follows Maggie, the apprentice of a man pretending to be a magician. When she discovers a captive dragon in the woods, she awakens something in herself. Meanwhile, Griffin is a knight who has raised himself from poverty to the prince's best friend and trusted warrior of the king. But when he meets Maggie, he begins to question the world around him.

This was a standard YA fantasy book with dragons thrown in it. It wasn't exactly original in plot or characters, but that didn't necessarily make it a bad read. I would recommend it to younger teens just getting into YA fantasy. I think for readers who are well read in the genre will find it lacking in terms of originality. I did enjoy the use of dragons. I think dragons and magic creatures in general are lacking in the YA fantasy, so I did enjoy that aspect. The magic was also a bit different, but not really well explained. I think this book could have been longer to explain the lore or some of the plot points. The ending was also very rushed. I think an extra chapter or two would have really helped this story out.

Overall, I would give this book 2.5/5, rounded it to 3 stars.

teachinsci's review against another edition

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3.0

I read this book with my daughter to introduce her to one of my favorite authors (Salvatore). Because of that, it took a bit longer for us to read and was a little more broken up than a normal read. Because of that, we didn't notice as much the shift in the perspective of the different pov characters as others have mentioned.
The majority of this book was enjoyable and interesting... in fact, my daughter got very invested in the characters.

Speaking of the characters, the main (pov) characters had very distinct voices and personalities. It was fairly obvious that they were written by the individual authors. The other main characters were mostly fairly one dimensional though well written.

The two problems I had with the book were:
1) the title "Color of Dragons" implies that there will be more than one dragon or that the dragons themselves will be a major portion of the book. They were not. In fact, while a very interesting personality was hinted at for the one dragon in the book, it was never explored and I felt like this was a missed dimension in the book.
2) the ending. The close of the book felt rushed. There were a lot of revelations near the end that weren't really dealt with. Then, A LOT of action was implied/waved away in just a few sentences. In addition, After reading the last paragraph, both my daughter and I said, "What?!?" The tying in of the book to a greater legend felt a bit shoehorned into the story and even cheapened the story.

I will (and currently am) read more R.A. Salvatore. As far as this new author, I would certainly give her another chance, and my daughter as well, but hopefully if they collaborate again the ending will be as well thought out as the rest of the book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.