Book Review: Before She Ignites

TITLE: Before She Ignites
Book 1 in the Fallen Isles Trilogy
AUTHOR: Jodi Meadows
PUBLISHED: September 2017
CATEGORY: Young Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A girl discovers a dark secret about her world and is thrown in prison before she can reveal the secret...
MY REVIEW: This was a rather interesting read. It is definitely different from Meadows other reads, that's for sure. There is no love triangle. In fact, there's very little romance at all. There does seem to be the start of something with one guy, but she does not at all say the word love, nor is there any kissing. I find this so refreshing. YA authors, more of this please! Slow build romances are your friend, guys.
World building wise....it's okay. Most of the book is spent in the prison, so you don't see all of the world. For those worried about the white author writing a black character aspect...the character's race is pretty much a non-issue. The author points out when characters are not white...but she does not once use race as a plot issue. She's more interested in country divides and dragons. Which is probably just as well.
The way this was written was the most interesting aspect of it for me. She does a bit of a LOST thing where it switches between past and present and it's pretty effective for building suspense. For the most part, I liked this book. It was a bit slow, especially in the middle, but the ending was a good pay-off and makes me look forward to the next one. I say it was a job well done.
WHO SHOULD READ: Jodi Meadows fans, fantasy fans, dragon fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five dragons

Book Review: Shadow Scale

TITLE: Shadow Scale
Book 2 in the Seraphina series
AUTHOR: Rachel Hartman
PUBLISHED: March 2015
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: Seraphina gathers people like herself in order stop a war between dragons and humans.
MY REVIEW: I meant to get this finished ages ago. I adored Seraphina when I finally got to it. I bought this immediately after it came out. Then...forgot to read it? No real reason I didn't get to it until just now. It's just I have a lot of books on my list and books I own tend to be put off until I finish up my library books. But I have finally finished it and I really liked it.
This is very much a slow burn sort of book. Much of the plot is in character stuff and politics. There's not much action until the last hundred pages or so. I know the author was struggling with this and I can see why it took her awhile to write. But the ending does come to a very satisfying conclusion. I also am really pleased with how the author ended the love triangle.
As I said, it's a slow book. Which is probably why it's gotten so many mixed reviews. Slow books can be a mixed bag with people. It probably didn't help that there were really high expectations for this. Personally, I think the author did a good job. I look forward to whatever she has in store for us next.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Seraphina, high fantasy fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five dragons
RATING FOR SERIES: Four and a half out of Five

Book Review: Uprooted

TITLE: Uprooted
AUTHOR: Naomi Novik
PUBLISHED: May 19th, 2015
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A girl from a village is taken to be a dragon's servant for ten years.
MY REVIEW: Confession time: I've never read the Temeraire series, which is the series this author is known for. No reason I haven't read it. I just never got around to it. After reading this one though...I think I may have to give it a look sooner, rather than later. Because I kind of loved this.
Most of the reason I loved this came down to the storytelling. This is an author who knows how to weave a tale to keep you hooked. I loved the imagination going on in the world. It's one of those worlds you just want to spend more time in. There are complicated characters, but it never goes overboard with how messed up they are, like some of these dark fantasy books can sometimes do (hey there, Game of Thrones). I mean the dragon in this has issues, but he's also kind of endearing in the way he gets so miffed when Agnieszka does magic in a way that magic is not supposed to be done.
This was just an enjoyable old school type of fantasy book. It's absorbing and readable and I really liked it. I'm definitely looking into the Temeraire series now. Maybe not this year because I'm still trying to do the Thursday Next series and the Others series and those books are huge. But definitely next year.
WHO SHOULD READ: Temeraire series fans, dragon book fans, fantasy fans, Diana Wynne Jones fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five pissy dragons

Book Review: Talon

TITLE: Talon
Book 1 in the Talon series
AUTHOR: Julie Kagawa
PUBLISHED: October 28th, 2014
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban Fantasy, Shifters, Dragons
PREMISE: A young dragon experiences freedom for the first time all while not knowing she's falling for a dragon hunter...
MY REVIEW: Kagawa never fails to disappoint. Somehow she manages to take tired cliches (sorry, but the shifter dragon thing has been done several times, it's not new) and put fresh spins on them.
Are there some tropes here? Yes. Do the tropes hinder the story in any way? Nope, not really. Yet again, Kagawa manages to weave an entertaining but also kind of thoughtful yarn. This is not an easy thing to do and I get impressed every time I read a new book of hers about how she manages this feat. Kagawa, what's your secret? All aspiring writers want to know.
Basically, if you're a Kagawa fan, this book is for you. It's got her imagination running through it (no, seriously, I love her imagination) and is entertaining throughout. If you're in the mood for dragons, this is your new series to check out while waiting for the new Seraphina book (four months and counting!).
WHO SHOULD READ: Firelight series fans, Julie Kagawa fans, dragons fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five claws

Book Review: The Smoke Thief

TITLE: The Smoke Thief
Book 1 in the Drakon series
AUTHOR: Shana Abe
PUBLISHED: 2005
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Historical fantasy, dragons, romance
PREMISE: A thief is confunding the London police. When Kit, leader of his tribe of dragons, helps out he discovers the thief is one of his own kind as well as his mate.
MY REVIEW: Sigh. This one started out really well. I loved the setting of it. Abe's writing is very nice, and hello: dragons. There simply aren't enough dragon books out there. This saddens me. Unfortunately it falls prey to it's own genre and thus is full of Harlequin romance plot cliches that somewhat dampan the creative idea.
Then there's Kit. Wow what a douche. Worse he's an Alpha Male douche. An extremely problamatic male lead as well. He has no problem whatsoever kidnapping the heroine and at one point basically says he would have no problem raping her as long as he could have sex with her. Wow. Just, really author? I find it troubling that this was completely glosssed over and of course in the end the heroine totally fell for Kit's charms cause they were "meant to be".
I liked the plot part of this book. It's almost enough to make me consider picking up the next book even though with that ending I'm not sure why there's more in the series. But the romance part kind of overshadows the good here so I have to say this is a library read only.
WHO SHOULD READ: Dragon fans, Firelight series fans, romance fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five could have been better then what it was books

Book Review: Seraphina

TITLE: Seraphina
Book 1 in the Seraphina series
AUTHOR: Rachel Hartman
PUBLISHED: July 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dragons, fantasy
PREMISE: Seraphina has spent all her life hiding her true nature for good reason: dragons are not trusted. Then she gets drawn into court intrigue by royals...
MY REVIEW: I'm going to go ahead and warn you: this review comes with bias because I loved the hell out of this book. I will say that perhaps it moves a bit slowly and one or two things could be clarified but for the most part this is definitely one of my top ten books of 2012 and another favorite debut.
The writing is fabulous, the characters are all wonderfully fleshed out and enjoyable, and it's creative. Granted, dragons shapeshifting into real people has been a staple of fanfiction for years but this is how you do that trope right. It's also very nice to see straight up fantasy because as I've said before: there's not enough of it in YA. I especially appreciate it when it's clear the author has put in a lot of effort to make this good. I don't feel like this was a book knocked out in a month like I do with a lot of debuts nowadays.
Basically if you like any sort of fantasy you should read this book. It's old school fantasy story telling and a good example of why I haven't given up on YA.
WHO SHOULD READ: Tamora Pierce fans, Eragon fan, fantasy fans, Harry Potter fans
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five badass dragons