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A review by poisonenvy
Dragon Rule by E.E. Knight
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Apparently in 2012, I rated this book 5 stars, and that is definitely not true anymore.
I recall liking the later books with all of the siblings in them a lot, but tastes change I guess.
The weird sexism in these books just kinda takes me right out of it. Like I mentioned in previous reviews, none of the female characters (the exception being Wistala) have any sense of internal consistency in their characterization. They seem to be there solely so that Knight can have someone for whatever bad-guy roll he needs. Every female dragon seems obsessed only with their appearance, or with how to backstab or manipulate the people around them, and I'm mildly concerned that this book has the SECOND instance of a dragonelle beating herself up so that she can falsely accuse her mate of domestic abuse. It's very weird that this keeps coming up.
It's also super weird that the male dragons all get horny over the scent of human females.
Some of my favourite interactions in the first three books were between the dragons and their hominid relationships, and that is gone entirely from this book.
I spent a big chunk of the latter half of the book wondering if I was going to bother rereading the last book in the series, but this one ended in an intriguing enough manner that I will continue the series, if only because I cannot for the life of me remember how it ends. Also, I know he's recently written a spin-off series for this series with like, a Dragon Academy, and I'm interested to see where it goes.
I recall liking the later books with all of the siblings in them a lot, but tastes change I guess.
The weird sexism in these books just kinda takes me right out of it. Like I mentioned in previous reviews, none of the female characters (the exception being Wistala) have any sense of internal consistency in their characterization. They seem to be there solely so that Knight can have someone for whatever bad-guy roll he needs. Every female dragon seems obsessed only with their appearance, or with how to backstab or manipulate the people around them, and I'm mildly concerned that this book has the SECOND instance of a dragonelle beating herself up so that she can falsely accuse her mate of domestic abuse. It's very weird that this keeps coming up.
It's also super weird that the male dragons all get horny over the scent of human females.
Some of my favourite interactions in the first three books were between the dragons and their hominid relationships, and that is gone entirely from this book.
I spent a big chunk of the latter half of the book wondering if I was going to bother rereading the last book in the series, but this one ended in an intriguing enough manner that I will continue the series, if only because I cannot for the life of me remember how it ends. Also, I know he's recently written a spin-off series for this series with like, a Dragon Academy, and I'm interested to see where it goes.