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A review by scriptrix
The Last of the Firedrakes by Farah Oomerbhoy
1.0
"Don't judge a book by its cover," they said.
"But it's so pretty," I said, walking directly into the marketing trap that was this book...
It's freaking beautiful, that cover. The covers of the whole series, honestly. And when you have words like "firedrakes" and "dragons" in your titles, I'm a sucker. I fall in headlong.
But oh. my. gosh. I could not BELIEVE the quality of the writing. At my most charitable, I'd describe it as "very very young middle grade." If I were to be a little less polite, I'd call it "a thirteen-year-old's first attempt at a novel." I literally had to stop and google the publishing company to figure out how the heck this got published in the year of our lord twenty fifteen.
And then I saw "Wattpad" and things started to make sense.
Listen. No shade if you get your start in reading or writing or both on Wattpad. It's a great place to make connections as a young writer and grow your craft. But popularity with that community does not equal quality. This book just is not up to the standards of the publishing industry at large. The writing was so bare-bones and juvenile-sounding I literally could not keep reading it. I DNF'd at page 80-something.
I sincerely hope the author continues writing and improving her style. This book is very very first-book-y, but that just means she has huge space to grow and get better. I'm sure she'll be amazing someday. I just feel that this book was published before it had reached its full potential, and that's really a shame.
"But it's so pretty," I said, walking directly into the marketing trap that was this book...
It's freaking beautiful, that cover. The covers of the whole series, honestly. And when you have words like "firedrakes" and "dragons" in your titles, I'm a sucker. I fall in headlong.
But oh. my. gosh. I could not BELIEVE the quality of the writing. At my most charitable, I'd describe it as "very very young middle grade." If I were to be a little less polite, I'd call it "a thirteen-year-old's first attempt at a novel." I literally had to stop and google the publishing company to figure out how the heck this got published in the year of our lord twenty fifteen.
And then I saw "Wattpad" and things started to make sense.
Listen. No shade if you get your start in reading or writing or both on Wattpad. It's a great place to make connections as a young writer and grow your craft. But popularity with that community does not equal quality. This book just is not up to the standards of the publishing industry at large. The writing was so bare-bones and juvenile-sounding I literally could not keep reading it. I DNF'd at page 80-something.
I sincerely hope the author continues writing and improving her style. This book is very very first-book-y, but that just means she has huge space to grow and get better. I'm sure she'll be amazing someday. I just feel that this book was published before it had reached its full potential, and that's really a shame.