sc104906's review against another edition
4.0
Creel’s aunt sends her to the local dragon, as a ruse to entice local knights to rescue her from the dragon. Creel is not about that! She makes friends with the dragon, wins some sweet blue boots off of him and travels to the kingdom’s capital, where she plans to own her own embroidery shop. Along the way, she makes more dragon friends, who help her get to the city. Once there, she stumbles upon the prince’s betrothed, a foreign princess, who is totally mean. There is something wrong with this new princess and things become more tense and wary as time passes. The foreign princess is up to something, but Creel may be the only to save her country from war.
This was a fun fantasy book, with quirky dragons and girls. It was a quick read. Nothing too deep here, but as I said, it was fun.
This was a fun fantasy book, with quirky dragons and girls. It was a quick read. Nothing too deep here, but as I said, it was fun.
keeliaax's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
scribesprite's review against another edition
4.0
I've been putting this book off for a while now. My only excuse is that I got caught up in rereading older favorites and newly released books. I kind of had this great picture in my mind of how this book would be. As per usual it was different than I thought and as per usual it was in a good way.
Hating to be a burden and hoping for a new and better life Creel reluctantly agrees to go with her Aunt's crazy plan to be captured by a dragon. Her Aunt hopes to get a wealthy knight/prince to rescue her and marry her. Creel doesn't think that a dragon even exists in the cave until she finds out there is. In order to save herself and the dragon anymore trouble she strikes a bargain and ends up with a pair of very nice and very unique pair of slippers. As the title suggests they are not ordinary slippers so ultimately the slippers make more trouble for her.
Because of these slippers Creels encounter other dragons, gets on the bad side of the new princess to be, and has a chance of making her dream come true all while having to save the kingdom from certain disaster. Pretty good stuff huh? The certain disaster part came a little later than I hoped but it's still great. The slippers were the most frustrating thing of all. Why is there always something in the way of Creel finding out what the slippers do? And she knows that they aren't just ordinary slippers so why doesn't she try harder to find out what is so special about them? She doesn't find out before it’s too late.
Having Creel as a protagonist was fun. She is an all together reluctant heroine and she knows that she is in over her head but does her best to do what she can. Creel always stays true to herself through and through. But what I liked so much about this book is that its part of a series and it could really stand on its own. I want to read the next book though.
Hating to be a burden and hoping for a new and better life Creel reluctantly agrees to go with her Aunt's crazy plan to be captured by a dragon. Her Aunt hopes to get a wealthy knight/prince to rescue her and marry her. Creel doesn't think that a dragon even exists in the cave until she finds out there is. In order to save herself and the dragon anymore trouble she strikes a bargain and ends up with a pair of very nice and very unique pair of slippers. As the title suggests they are not ordinary slippers so ultimately the slippers make more trouble for her.
Because of these slippers Creels encounter other dragons, gets on the bad side of the new princess to be, and has a chance of making her dream come true all while having to save the kingdom from certain disaster. Pretty good stuff huh? The certain disaster part came a little later than I hoped but it's still great. The slippers were the most frustrating thing of all. Why is there always something in the way of Creel finding out what the slippers do? And she knows that they aren't just ordinary slippers so why doesn't she try harder to find out what is so special about them? She doesn't find out before it’s too late.
Having Creel as a protagonist was fun. She is an all together reluctant heroine and she knows that she is in over her head but does her best to do what she can. Creel always stays true to herself through and through. But what I liked so much about this book is that its part of a series and it could really stand on its own. I want to read the next book though.
lumos_libros's review against another edition
5.0
This book reminded me of when I had my fantasy phase. All I would read was fantasy (I know better now) but I would have gobble this up then just like I did now.
Creel is a poor girl from Carlieff, she has lost her mother and father and is now living with her aunt. Her aunt has the "genius" idea to send Creel to purposely get taken by a dragon, so that a charming prince will rescue and of course marry her. Through that marriage the whole family would benefit and no longer be scraping by to make ends meet. Well, everything does not go as planned...
As indicated by the title there is an important pair of slippers that play a huge role in this book. I caught early on what was so special about them, but Creel herself doesn't for a good chunk of the book. I liked how her skills with embroidery come into play, and I could visualize the pieces she made. There is so much in this story that is covered, which surprised me because of it's length. The take on dragons is unique and the best one I have seen. In the story the dragons are personable (if that makes sense) and are characters in their own right. Creel herself will come to have a strong bond with the golden dragon Shardas.
Pace, character development, world building, little twists, and plot were right on. I could nitpick that it has the feel of other books but I won't. I just fell in love with Jessica Day George's way of telling a story. It flows right and looks like it was done with ease, though still having the tension you need in a story. I imagine it would be an excellent book to read out loud.
Will be definitely reading the sequel [b:Dragon Flight|2208744|Dragon Flight (Dragon Slippers, #2)|Jessica Day George|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1396620957s/2208744.jpg|2214520].
Creel is a poor girl from Carlieff, she has lost her mother and father and is now living with her aunt. Her aunt has the "genius" idea to send Creel to purposely get taken by a dragon, so that a charming prince will rescue and of course marry her. Through that marriage the whole family would benefit and no longer be scraping by to make ends meet. Well, everything does not go as planned...
As indicated by the title there is an important pair of slippers that play a huge role in this book. I caught early on what was so special about them, but Creel herself doesn't for a good chunk of the book. I liked how her skills with embroidery come into play, and I could visualize the pieces she made. There is so much in this story that is covered, which surprised me because of it's length. The take on dragons is unique and the best one I have seen. In the story the dragons are personable (if that makes sense) and are characters in their own right. Creel herself will come to have a strong bond with the golden dragon Shardas.
Pace, character development, world building, little twists, and plot were right on. I could nitpick that it has the feel of other books but I won't. I just fell in love with Jessica Day George's way of telling a story. It flows right and looks like it was done with ease, though still having the tension you need in a story. I imagine it would be an excellent book to read out loud.
Will be definitely reading the sequel [b:Dragon Flight|2208744|Dragon Flight (Dragon Slippers, #2)|Jessica Day George|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1396620957s/2208744.jpg|2214520].
shaekin's review against another edition
5.0
I couldn't put this book down! I didn't read the synopsis so I had no idea what I was getting myself into which made this book even better. Loved it and definitely getting the rest of the series.
The second time I read this I started it with my nieces and there was a lot of begging to read throughout the day rather than just before bed. I had to leave before we finished it, but I've been assured they're both cruising through it on their own.
The second time I read this I started it with my nieces and there was a lot of begging to read throughout the day rather than just before bed. I had to leave before we finished it, but I've been assured they're both cruising through it on their own.
elenajohansen's review against another edition
3.0
I've come out at the end of this story with strongly mixed feelings--what was good about it was very good, downright charming, while what was bad was pretty awful. And most of it comes in matched sets, right across the board.
What do I mean by that? Let's start with our cast of characters. The protagonist and her circle are both morally good and well-characterized. The villains, major or minor, are all stereotypically evil and weakly characterized, with little or no depth to the motivations for their actions. It's great that Creel is skilled at a craft, and ambitious, and kind when she can be but protective of her own needs when that's more important. I love that I have a good sense of her personality and how she would react to any given situation. But her counterpart Amalia? The shallowest of spoiled princesses, with no characterization beyond that, and the general motivation of "this country is our enemy so of course its princess turned out to be working against us." I'm sorry, girls her age with her upbringing and personality (what little there is of it) strike me as more likely to rebel against her parents and refuse to do anything useful, rather than help orchestrate the takeover of a hostile country using magic and dragons.
Now consider the pacing. The opening and middle of the story are a sort of genteel, plodding fairy tale where everyone takes their time having conversations, and Creel gets to describe her craft at length, and sure things are happening but no one is in any great hurry. Then the war starts and suddenly we readers are plunged into a fast(er)-paced narrative of danger and death and intrigue. I'm sorry, what happened to the almost Gaiman-esque layer of polish and charm to everything? (Not that bad things don't happen in Gaiman novels, they do, but they happen with a certain style to them.) The tonal whiplash I felt between Creel conversing calmly with her dragon friends, and then nearly everyone in the palace dying in a mind-controlled-dragon attack, cannot be overstated. It felt like I was reading an entirely different book that happened to have the same character names.
Let's talk disability rep, too. I'm not thrilled that our minor antagonist, Larkin, is a bitter young woman with a limp who hates being relegated to the back of the dress shop because of her appearance and disability, who eventually commits a bit of light treason to her country. Like, do I understand her feelings about the unfairness of how she's been treated? Absolutely! Do I think I'm actually supposed to believe as a reader that she's angry enough about it to want to turn her entire country over to the enemy, though? Not really. And if she's only supposed to have done the traitorous thing she did out of a certain level of understandable spite, then shouldn't she be remorseful in the end when she realizes the part she played in a situation that presumably went farther than she ever knew or intended?
And there's an obvious attempt to balance that "bad" rep by having Prince Luka's guard Tobin be mute, but still be awesome. And I'll agree he pretty much is, that's not the problem. The problem is that Creel is apparently so sheltered that she literally doesn't know sign language is a thing--though to be fair to her, it only gets brought up directly very late in the story, so it's not like I knew sign language was a thing in this fantasy world--and she only notices at the very end that Tobin has been communicating with others through gestures, in addition to the much more obvious body language that even speaking people use, like nodding or shaking one's head, etc. Yes, Creel is definitely a bit of a country bumpkin, but how does characterizing her as ignorant about disabilities help the narrative, or the reader? If Tobin is the "good" disabled rep to even out Larkin's "bad" rep, then why aren't his issues handled with more sensitivity?
Finally, I love Luka as the down-to-earth and kindly prince, and I get how he could be fascinated by someone like Creel, but the romance between them is mostly a tale I'm spinning in my own head based on a combination of hope (because I am that romantic) and pretty subtle clues I don't actually know if I would have picked up if I were the age group this is targeted towards. At the end, when my maybe-this-is-where-we're-going hopes were confirmed, I still wasn't sure it wasn't going to be just that Luka and Creel had forged a reasonably strong friendship across their social and class boundaries, but no, it was a romance, though that romance seemed as surprising to Creel as to anybody else, which I believe partially makes my point for me.
I see there's more to the series, but looking over the blurb, I'm just not invested enough.
What do I mean by that? Let's start with our cast of characters. The protagonist and her circle are both morally good and well-characterized. The villains, major or minor, are all stereotypically evil and weakly characterized, with little or no depth to the motivations for their actions. It's great that Creel is skilled at a craft, and ambitious, and kind when she can be but protective of her own needs when that's more important. I love that I have a good sense of her personality and how she would react to any given situation. But her counterpart Amalia? The shallowest of spoiled princesses, with no characterization beyond that, and the general motivation of "this country is our enemy so of course its princess turned out to be working against us." I'm sorry, girls her age with her upbringing and personality (what little there is of it) strike me as more likely to rebel against her parents and refuse to do anything useful, rather than help orchestrate the takeover of a hostile country using magic and dragons.
Now consider the pacing. The opening and middle of the story are a sort of genteel, plodding fairy tale where everyone takes their time having conversations, and Creel gets to describe her craft at length, and sure things are happening but no one is in any great hurry. Then the war starts and suddenly we readers are plunged into a fast(er)-paced narrative of danger and death and intrigue. I'm sorry, what happened to the almost Gaiman-esque layer of polish and charm to everything? (Not that bad things don't happen in Gaiman novels, they do, but they happen with a certain style to them.) The tonal whiplash I felt between Creel conversing calmly with her dragon friends, and then nearly everyone in the palace dying in a mind-controlled-dragon attack, cannot be overstated. It felt like I was reading an entirely different book that happened to have the same character names.
Let's talk disability rep, too. I'm not thrilled that our minor antagonist, Larkin, is a bitter young woman with a limp who hates being relegated to the back of the dress shop because of her appearance and disability, who eventually commits a bit of light treason to her country. Like, do I understand her feelings about the unfairness of how she's been treated? Absolutely! Do I think I'm actually supposed to believe as a reader that she's angry enough about it to want to turn her entire country over to the enemy, though? Not really. And if she's only supposed to have done the traitorous thing she did out of a certain level of understandable spite, then shouldn't she be remorseful in the end when she realizes the part she played in a situation that presumably went farther than she ever knew or intended?
And there's an obvious attempt to balance that "bad" rep by having Prince Luka's guard Tobin be mute, but still be awesome. And I'll agree he pretty much is, that's not the problem. The problem is that Creel is apparently so sheltered that she literally doesn't know sign language is a thing--though to be fair to her, it only gets brought up directly very late in the story, so it's not like I knew sign language was a thing in this fantasy world--and she only notices at the very end that Tobin has been communicating with others through gestures, in addition to the much more obvious body language that even speaking people use, like nodding or shaking one's head, etc. Yes, Creel is definitely a bit of a country bumpkin, but how does characterizing her as ignorant about disabilities help the narrative, or the reader? If Tobin is the "good" disabled rep to even out Larkin's "bad" rep, then why aren't his issues handled with more sensitivity?
Finally, I love Luka as the down-to-earth and kindly prince, and I get how he could be fascinated by someone like Creel, but the romance between them is mostly a tale I'm spinning in my own head based on a combination of hope (because I am that romantic) and pretty subtle clues I don't actually know if I would have picked up if I were the age group this is targeted towards. At the end, when my maybe-this-is-where-we're-going hopes were confirmed, I still wasn't sure it wasn't going to be just that Luka and Creel had forged a reasonably strong friendship across their social and class boundaries, but no, it was a romance, though that romance seemed as surprising to Creel as to anybody else, which I believe partially makes my point for me.
I see there's more to the series, but looking over the blurb, I'm just not invested enough.
edarcys's review against another edition
5.0
This book reminded me of "Dealing with Dragons" so it came as no surprise when the author mentioned Patricia C. Wrede (along with Robin McKinley) as some of her favorite authors. I enjoyed "Dragon Slippers" almost as much as I enjoy the Enchanted Forest series.
jtlars7's review against another edition
4.0
S. has been really into this trilogy (and the author’s Tuesdays at the Castle series), so I decided to read one and see what it was she liked so much. It was good! Echoes of Cinderella, but with dragons. The hardworking heroine is loyal to her friends and to her country without being afraid to speak up to her country’s leaders. I love that it demonstrates that being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t scared.
make_it_a_melody's review against another edition
5.0
At first I wasn't even going to read this book.
But when I picked it up I couldn't put it down.
But when I picked it up I couldn't put it down.
greenhearted101's review against another edition
4.0
What an excellent start to the Trilogy, I cannot wait to read the other books in the series!