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The “world building” is a flimsy Potemkin city of cardboard cutouts and embarrassing tropes and cliches, with the only redeeming feature being the dragons themselves, something there are precious few moments with outside of the usual Joss Whedon dialogue and snarky remarks. Lots of “chuffing” as a catch all expression for dragon-y displeasure.
In this medieval inspired Harry Potter meets dragon ROTC knock-off you will read phrases like “for the win” and “he is absolute love” and punctuation, that. Always. Does. This. Because. That’s. How. The. Fanfic. Community. Writes. I. Guess? Seems. Rude. To. The. Fanfic. People.
Needless modern swearing, somehow people still use the middle finger as an insult here and turns of phrase that don’t make sense, a will they/when they romance between pretty insufferable characters billed as “enemies to lovers” that is paper thin and one of the worst protagonists I have ever read as your only POV.
The heroine spends most of her time objectifying the boys in her class, being buffy-style snarky, poisoning her classmates (!!!!) and talking about how she’s so weak and frail and small (tiny, he could crush me, oooh these big huge strong men oooooh) while somehow constantly being able to take an incredible amount of damage and abuse in comparison to her classmates. Everyone is stronger than her at all times except when she needs to do something and it would be inconvenient to fail. This is mostly because every test and trial results in the death of other students, supposedly to “cull the weak” but the narrative is that they have fewer and fewer eligible riders every year and that they’re losing the war at the border so I don’t really know why they’re just… letting everyone die or kill each other at a school?
This goes from mild curiosity to a absolutely tedious chore by about page 275. Lots of sloppy trope-bait writing, in all honesty it seems like it could have really used another editing pass because the sentence to sentence structure is a rickety mess.
This gets 1.75 “smiles curling up her face” 😏out of 5 “arched eyebrows”.🤨
Graphic: Bullying, Sexual content, Violence, Forced institutionalization, War
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Death, Violence, Death of parent
Moderate: Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, War
Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Vomit, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Blood, Toxic friendship, Abandonment
Was if original? No.
Were there cliches? Yes.
Did I devour it? Yes.
Was it fun as hell? Also yes.
Was it sexy? Duh.
It reminded me most of The Poppy War mixed with Divergent.
Graphic: Death, Violence, Death of parent, War
Moderate: Bullying, Blood
Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
A rider without their dragon is dead.”
I started this book because I friend of mine wanted to start reading again and didn't know what to read. And because this was something that was recommended to her, we decided to do a buddy read. However, not gonna lie, I had a lot of doubts about this one. This book gets a lot of hype and I tend to have a very 50/50 reaction to hyped books: I either love them or hate them.
Well, take this review with a grain of salt (because I'm still riding the fumes - that's why I'm not going to give 5 stars to this book) but I f****** love this book! I loved every single second of it. The drama, the action, the romance, everything has its time and blends together to make a really good story! The characters are well written and structured!
I'm excited to start the second book, and really recommend this series!!!
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual assault, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent
Minor: Physical abuse
Graphic: Bullying, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, War, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail