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A review by afantasysky
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
adventurous
3.0
First book of 2024! Dragonflight was the January pick for a book club I go to and I probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise.
It was a super interesting discussion with it being a childhood favourite for some and completely new to others. We had a range of loved to hated but everyone agreed that the gender politics, relationship dynamic and fatphobia in particular were big problems. For those that loved it, it was the first example of SFF with a strong female hero with agency that they had ever read and that made it a really special series for them.
Once I got into the story, I actually had a lot of fun. The prose at the beginning is a bit hard to get into with lots of over the top word choices but later on it's better. I was very much enjoying being in the the dragons and dragon riders. I flew through the second half. Unfortunately I couldn't ignore the problematic elements and I constantly found it jarring every time the love interest did something like violently shake the heroine because she did something he didn't agree with. There was just so much of it, that while half of me was having fun the other half was going "excuse me, what?!" the whole time.
Saying that I did consider continuing the series, until I found out exactly how long it was. I think I'll leave this one here and just appreciate that reading let me take part in a really interesting discussion.
It was a super interesting discussion with it being a childhood favourite for some and completely new to others. We had a range of loved to hated but everyone agreed that the gender politics, relationship dynamic and fatphobia in particular were big problems. For those that loved it, it was the first example of SFF with a strong female hero with agency that they had ever read and that made it a really special series for them.
Once I got into the story, I actually had a lot of fun. The prose at the beginning is a bit hard to get into with lots of over the top word choices but later on it's better. I was very much enjoying being in the the dragons and dragon riders. I flew through the second half. Unfortunately I couldn't ignore the problematic elements and I constantly found it jarring every time the love interest did something like violently shake the heroine because she did something he didn't agree with. There was just so much of it, that while half of me was having fun the other half was going "excuse me, what?!" the whole time.
Saying that I did consider continuing the series, until I found out exactly how long it was. I think I'll leave this one here and just appreciate that reading let me take part in a really interesting discussion.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
Moderate: Domestic abuse