kathoulhu 's review for:

New Dragon City by Mari Mancusi

3.0

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I really liked the premise of this book but there were a few things that bugged me enough that I couldn’t shake them. Primarily, it grated that there seemed the be no evolution of main character thinking about the dragons after he realized they were sentient. He still called them “his or her dragon” as if they were a pet, and people who were theoretically “bonded” to the dragons “gave them names” as if they didn’t already have a name of their own. They were also infantilized and made to seem both dog-like and yet obviously they were more than an animal, since they had language and communication. It was especially grating at the end because the main character was still using pet-equivalent language instead of peer-equal language, which made me not really root for him.