Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Color of Dragons

I had really high hopes for this book, but I felt like the characters didn’t really have any depth, as well as the relationship between Maggie and Griffin.
For me the end felt kinda forced, as everything just worked itself out on the last five pages, which seemed rather unrealistic to me.

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wanderingandwondering's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

Two underdogs get to live in the renowned walled city and discover not everything is what it seems.

This is a good, quick read with dragons and some interesting world concepts if you don't mind violence.

I loved the characters from the North, and I might have liked the second perspective more if it had come from one of them and not Griffin. The sibling interaction was amazing and I would have loved to see more from them! My favorite character was probably Sybil (though Petal is a close second).

The cute and predictable romance featured in this story was actually clean! Just a few kisses and lots of pining. Honestly, probably one of the most entertaining things about Griffin's perspective was how much he was pining for Maggie.

The world was interesting, but never really delved into because they spent so much time re-iterating how terrible the king and all of his knights are. Speaking of which, I would have liked to see something beyond the typical 'evil fantasy king, who has no humanity left' trope. Was he always that way? Did the war change him? He feels a bit like greed/power-lust incarnate, which isn't necessarily bad, I just wished there was a little something more to him or his story that Maggie or Griffin could have discovered.

This story is told from two alternating POVs, Maggie's and Griffin's, which I do not think did the story any favors. I also thought that a lot of the suspense that could have been built up around whether or not certain characters (like the Prince or even Griffin himself) were good or evil was cut by the fact that we had Griffin's 3rd person narration.

I was not a huge fan of how quickly the ending wrapped up (the antagonist is killed in the literal last chapter) since it left a ton of questions unanswered. Like, who takes over the government now? And how is there literally only one dragon? Surely the king didn't manage to kill all the other wild draignochs.

Another thing I liked was the 'moon magic'. I especially liked how Maggie almost instinctively knew its purpose before she officially figured it out. That was something I would have loved to see an explanation of (is she literally the daughter of the moon?).

There were so many things that interested me in this book, however, I didn't feel like a lot of it was really delivered on. I kind of wish it was a little longer, so the authors would have had more time to explore the world they created. Or if they had freed the dragon sooner maybe there would have been more time? Hard to say for sure, but congrats to Erika Lewis on her debut novel! I am curious to see what she'll write next!

CWs:
-Violence (portrayals of death, attacks on children, wounds)
-Abuse from parental figures (not any physical if I'm remembering correctly, I believe it was mostly mental)

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fromjuliereads's review

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adventurous dark funny hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

**Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for an advanced e-copy of this book.**

Initial review on finishing the book: Y'all. WHAT. This book ended up being so good!? Some serious YA cliches which made me wonder at first... but the ending was sooooo good. And I became quite connected to these characters!

Now, I will attempt to actually put my thoughts into a coherent review and proper sentences - haha!

Wow! I ended up being so pleasantly surprised by this book. I was so excited to see a YA fantasy standalone, something that is not super common, and even more excited when I realized that it would have dragons! While I wish the dragons had come into the story a bit more, just having any kind of dragon in a story makes it epically better, don't you think!? But I digress...

Salvatore and Lewis did a fantastic job of setting up an intriguing fantasy world - one which mirrors so many aspects of our real world that it was complex and different enough to make you escape into the world of fantasy while noticing the many similarities to the hierarchy we have in our society. The history and the set up of the world helped to shape so many aspects of the plot. Things were happening because of past events and relationships - and we had plenty of information to link them and make some theories about what might happen.
I think that was one of the great things about this book. I kept trying to guess how things would turn out, and a twist would throw me off here and there. I thought I had it all figured out at one point when the greatest twist happened and I was FLOORED. I didn't see it coming. Some people might, but I thought that the authors did a really good job of making you like so many of the characters while also being suspicious of almost all of them... You can't guess everyone's motives or moves at every plot point, and I loved that for a fantasy book. There was so much court and political intrigue in motion alongside the magic, the romance, and the friendships. It was so wonderful woven together.

I loved the characters. They all had flaws in some way or another, and they were all realistic people. I was rooting for some of them, intrigued by others, and honestly wanted to be friends with a few of them. I will say the one thing that I found difficult was that there are so many side characters for a standalone fantasy. It was difficult to keep track of a whole host of characters at the beginning, and I easily mixed them up a couple times. BUT they all come to play a role in the story, no matter how small. I think some could easily have spinoff stories if the authors choose, and depending on the characters, I could be easily enticed to pick up their stories.

I will admit that I hope the book went through another round of editing, but I would never hold that against an arc and did not factor it into my rating. I did, however, factor in the few blatant YA cliches that were used... a couple are honestly mocked at this point so I am not sure if the authors used them in jest or not, but I feel like we could move on from some of them in the mess of 2021 and leave them behind... but alas, they definitely didn't break the book for me.
I think that the book does take a little bit to set things up since it begins en media res, but I generally like that.

If you are looking for a YA fantasy that is easy to follow, has great characters and court intrigues, friendship, romance, and DRAGONS, then I think this is a fantastic book to pick up - especially since it's a standalone! Perfect for when you want a touch of fantasy but don't want to commit to multiple books.

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