A review by yvo_about_books
The Dragon in the Bookshop by Ewa Jozefkowicz

3.5

 Finished reading: June 6th 2023


“Dad used to say that in books, authors leave pieces of themselves behind for others to find.”

I needed a book with dragons for the Beat The Backlist Bingo challenge, and I decided to pick up The Dragon In The Bookshop. I know that I hardly read MG anymore, but I liked the sound of the blurb and the Polish setting. I was a bit surprised by just how slow going the start of this story was, and it took longer than expected for it to fully capture my attention. The blurb already hints at this, but the first part of the story is mainly about Konrad grieving the death of his father and being unable to speak. The way this was described made it hard to get a proper feel for Konrad, and it took some time warming up to him. Things improved when Maya was introduced, but it wasn't until the story switched from the UK to Poland that the plot really became interesting. I loved the incorporation of the legend of the Wawel dragon as well as the time travel element with the characters traveling back in time to that era. I visited the Wawel castle myself while in Krakow back in 2018, and the story brought back great memories! I do have to say that the character development itself was kind of flat, and I kept wondering if the target group would be invested enough in the story to actually make it to the truly interesting part. That said, the part set in Krakow was absolutely fantastic, and I can recommend The Dragon In The Bookshop for the legend, time travel and bookish element alone.
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