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A review by thunguyen
A Dragonbird in the Fern by Laura Rueckert
3.0
Somewhere above "it's okay" but not quite "I like it". Maybe a "I appreciate it" is a better rating. Hence the 3-star rating.
The story is high fantasy with many new ideas but let's begin with the classic brief:
- Young princess married off to foreign king for the sake of the country - check
- The chosen one - check
- Quest accomplished through impossible magic that no one knew about - check
- Epic betrayal - check
- Gotta stop a war - check
Now a breath of fresh air:
- Young princess wasn't forced into the marriage. She's not even an orphan. Her family was amazingly supportive. The groom was super kind and respectful. And she understood her duties to her country, plus she had a quest of her own, to find her sister's murderer. So she got married willingly.
- People of different nations indeed don't/can't communicate easily. There's no convenient translator left and right. And when countries keep it to themselves, there's not a lot of bilingual people around. The whole plot was based on this very practicality of life, which is very refreshing after seeing so many foreigners or indigenous people just quickly switch to speaking English in Hollywood movies.
- Young princess had dyslexia and at first appeared to have severe learning disability too. Her character development is heavily based on her overcoming the language barrier.
- World-building is nicely done. Very rich in details. Every country and culture was distinguish to another, making it easy to understand the fantasy world.
- The concept of earthwalker, the ghost of a murdered victim seeking their justice, haunting, raging and eventually killing their own loved ones, is truly frightening.
However, the story is a far cry from an epic fantasy. It's way too slow and quite uneventful. Jiara, our young princess, was the opposite of a sassy heroine. She possessed no high degree of intelligence, no exceptional skills in anything. Her struggle with the language at first was frustrating to read about. For example, after weeks of traveling with a group of foreigners then a couple more weeks living in their city, she was still unsure about how to say "hello". That's a bit much! There's a lot of self pity, self doubt, and anxiety that makes it not fun to read. I get it that the story is about having a disability. But this monologue goes on for almost 80% of the book until she started to reveal that she could now speak Farngark quite well. Then it's a bit much again. Really, she only had about 1 month to secretly learn the language properly.
The book still has a meditation value. The writing is nice, not overly complicated. The story telling is very realistic. Lots of details about the surrounding, especially gardens, forests, and lakes to get lost in world-building. I like the way Azzarian connected to their Gods of nature and Farngark believed their Watchers who watch out for everything. Enough to keep me interested till the end.
The story is high fantasy with many new ideas but let's begin with the classic brief:
- Young princess married off to foreign king for the sake of the country - check
- The chosen one - check
- Quest accomplished through impossible magic that no one knew about - check
- Epic betrayal - check
- Gotta stop a war - check
Now a breath of fresh air:
- Young princess wasn't forced into the marriage. She's not even an orphan. Her family was amazingly supportive. The groom was super kind and respectful. And she understood her duties to her country, plus she had a quest of her own, to find her sister's murderer. So she got married willingly.
- People of different nations indeed don't/can't communicate easily. There's no convenient translator left and right. And when countries keep it to themselves, there's not a lot of bilingual people around. The whole plot was based on this very practicality of life, which is very refreshing after seeing so many foreigners or indigenous people just quickly switch to speaking English in Hollywood movies.
- Young princess had dyslexia and at first appeared to have severe learning disability too. Her character development is heavily based on her overcoming the language barrier.
- World-building is nicely done. Very rich in details. Every country and culture was distinguish to another, making it easy to understand the fantasy world.
- The concept of earthwalker, the ghost of a murdered victim seeking their justice, haunting, raging and eventually killing their own loved ones, is truly frightening.
However, the story is a far cry from an epic fantasy. It's way too slow and quite uneventful. Jiara, our young princess, was the opposite of a sassy heroine. She possessed no high degree of intelligence, no exceptional skills in anything. Her struggle with the language at first was frustrating to read about. For example, after weeks of traveling with a group of foreigners then a couple more weeks living in their city, she was still unsure about how to say "hello". That's a bit much! There's a lot of self pity, self doubt, and anxiety that makes it not fun to read. I get it that the story is about having a disability. But this monologue goes on for almost 80% of the book until she started to reveal that she could now speak Farngark quite well. Then it's a bit much again. Really, she only had about 1 month to secretly learn the language properly.
The book still has a meditation value. The writing is nice, not overly complicated. The story telling is very realistic. Lots of details about the surrounding, especially gardens, forests, and lakes to get lost in world-building. I like the way Azzarian connected to their Gods of nature and Farngark believed their Watchers who watch out for everything. Enough to keep me interested till the end.