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A review by starsenshib
Raising Dragons by Bryan Davis
1.0
WOW
I recently remembered these books and I just HAD to review them because what a wild ride! what an absolute trip these books were wowee and holy mama buckle your seatbelts kids and get ready for the time of your life!
These books are trash
(Tl;dr Don't let your child read these books they are unhealthy, badly written and colored with creepy throughout)
I read these books as an impressionable young christian who was looking for fantasy media that aligned with my values. Oh my gosh, christian + dragon! An absolute no-brainer!
...Said me, and thousands of other impressionable tweens
So i read the books, and I liked them. Because I was an impressionable tween, and he was a respected christian author, and the books were about dragons, and the characters were (not really) respectable, good role models who strove to walk the christian walk
Something about these books always made me uncomfortable, but I figured it must be nothing, I devoured the first series and moved on to the next
And then I stopped
Because I knew there was something off about these books, even as an impressionable tween girl who is surrounded by terrible influences that say these kinds of books should be beneficial
I'm just going to do a fly-by and throw out the first few reasons I can think of for why you shouldn't read these books. An in-depth review of all the reasons would take weeks and lots of planning, so here's a small taste.
1.
Bonnie is a mary-sue
Not only is she a mary-sue but she is p e r f e c t. She never does anything wrong. She's referred to as Billy's "virgin bride" (his prize, the object to be won...yes) After reading 4 books about Bonnie I cannot give you a single character trait besides "sweet". She never DOES anything. She's as useless as Snow White from the original Disney movie and she's not even as likable. At one point in the book, she is sleeping - SLEEPING - and a man comes in to murder her and she's just so pure - as she lays in her bed - that he's like "aw nah I don't wanna kill her" and he leaves.
That happened.
As an adult I can look at these books and lol at the bad writing, but when you're a young impressionable tween you don't see a bad character - you see an unattainably perfect character. you see a girl that is the ideal - she is what you should be, but of course it's impossible because Bonnie is so perfect she makes Barbie jealous. What a great message to send young girls! "be perfect and if you're not it's because you're bad". Lights should shine down on you from heaven! (did that happen to Bonnie yes it did)
2. The theology is Troubling
This is what made me the most uncomfortable in his books. This author makes up crap by the truckload and he weaves his creepy dragon lore in with his own disturbing "perfection is attainable" theology, creating a narrative that both confuses and concerns me. I am genuinely glad this book didn't affect me more as a child, because from what I can tell of his ideals, the author is a disturbed individual.
3. The writing - it aint good folks
Christian fiction is a beautiful genre that kinda doesn't have any quality control, so it's always a surprise what you're going to get. It's like wattpad but you can't swear. These books have bad dialogue, badly written characters, uninteresting and confusing plots...everything you could ever want in a textbook case of a terrible story. Seriously - you want to become a better writer? go through this book page by page and pick apart all the errors, mistakes, bad writing techniques - you will at the very least be a great critic by the end.
The author should not be a writer, he should be a trashman. (I mean, he is a trashman, but his job should also be trashman.) He can start by taking all of these books and throwing them into the abyss
I recently remembered these books and I just HAD to review them because what a wild ride! what an absolute trip these books were wowee and holy mama buckle your seatbelts kids and get ready for the time of your life!
These books are trash
(Tl;dr Don't let your child read these books they are unhealthy, badly written and colored with creepy throughout)
I read these books as an impressionable young christian who was looking for fantasy media that aligned with my values. Oh my gosh, christian + dragon! An absolute no-brainer!
...Said me, and thousands of other impressionable tweens
So i read the books, and I liked them. Because I was an impressionable tween, and he was a respected christian author, and the books were about dragons, and the characters were (not really) respectable, good role models who strove to walk the christian walk
Something about these books always made me uncomfortable, but I figured it must be nothing, I devoured the first series and moved on to the next
And then I stopped
Because I knew there was something off about these books, even as an impressionable tween girl who is surrounded by terrible influences that say these kinds of books should be beneficial
I'm just going to do a fly-by and throw out the first few reasons I can think of for why you shouldn't read these books. An in-depth review of all the reasons would take weeks and lots of planning, so here's a small taste.
1.
Bonnie is a mary-sue
Not only is she a mary-sue but she is p e r f e c t. She never does anything wrong. She's referred to as Billy's "virgin bride" (his prize, the object to be won...yes) After reading 4 books about Bonnie I cannot give you a single character trait besides "sweet". She never DOES anything. She's as useless as Snow White from the original Disney movie and she's not even as likable. At one point in the book, she is sleeping - SLEEPING - and a man comes in to murder her and she's just so pure - as she lays in her bed - that he's like "aw nah I don't wanna kill her" and he leaves.
That happened.
As an adult I can look at these books and lol at the bad writing, but when you're a young impressionable tween you don't see a bad character - you see an unattainably perfect character. you see a girl that is the ideal - she is what you should be, but of course it's impossible because Bonnie is so perfect she makes Barbie jealous. What a great message to send young girls! "be perfect and if you're not it's because you're bad". Lights should shine down on you from heaven! (did that happen to Bonnie yes it did)
2. The theology is Troubling
This is what made me the most uncomfortable in his books. This author makes up crap by the truckload and he weaves his creepy dragon lore in with his own disturbing "perfection is attainable" theology, creating a narrative that both confuses and concerns me. I am genuinely glad this book didn't affect me more as a child, because from what I can tell of his ideals, the author is a disturbed individual.
3. The writing - it aint good folks
Christian fiction is a beautiful genre that kinda doesn't have any quality control, so it's always a surprise what you're going to get. It's like wattpad but you can't swear. These books have bad dialogue, badly written characters, uninteresting and confusing plots...everything you could ever want in a textbook case of a terrible story. Seriously - you want to become a better writer? go through this book page by page and pick apart all the errors, mistakes, bad writing techniques - you will at the very least be a great critic by the end.
The author should not be a writer, he should be a trashman. (I mean, he is a trashman, but his job should also be trashman.) He can start by taking all of these books and throwing them into the abyss