Reviews with content warning for Death - A Natural History of Dragons

Reviews tagging 'Death'

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

86 reviews

star_charter152's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

5.0

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jonwood's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I liked this audiobook less and less as I continued to listen. Once the narrator gets her chance to go on an exploration, the book lost most of my interest as it seems to become a series of episodes and typecasting of primitive people's religions. When the

husband of the lead dies and I find it anticlimactic and leaves me uncaring something's not working

. Also, I found the narrator's voice too much like a pretentious, condescending professor for me to enjoy listening to her read.

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mothmania's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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? Yes

5.0

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artemis_growl's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted fast-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? Yes

4.0

Moods:

✨Historical Fantasy Fiction

✨English Victorian Age

✨Dragons

✨Adventure

✨Audiobook

✨Stubborn Smart FMC

🌶️- alludes to/fade to black

Trigger warning:

Death/Violence, animal violence

Setting:

The world/setting was very similar to British Victorian age times. The conversations, the audiobook, all of it felt very period historical British book/movie.

Overall spoiler free impression review:

The book is from the POV of “Lady Trent” or as she is known in this book, Isabella Camherst. She’s gives off well to-do privileged lady from Victorian Age times. The book starts in the POV of now older Lady Trent who is retired from her adventures and she is retelling her life story and how she became interested in the study of dragons. If a TV series of this book is ever made i just want Maggie Smith narrating as Old Lady Trent.

The focus is all on Isabella, her character, personality, how she becomes involved in her adventures because of her love for dragons. The dragons feel more like a secondary thing. She has all the spunk of Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility but the logical mind of Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice.

I will say, if historical novels aren’t your thing then you probably won’t like this. The fantasy element is limited to the dragons and everything else is very ordinary. It’s as if Charles Darwin was a Victorian age lady who decided to write books about her adventures and there’s dragons. Isabella is a stubborn, young, smart woman, who doesn’t fit in with society. She wants to be a scholar, to research, go on adventures, study dragons. She dissects animals and wants to learn about them. Yet, she’s constrained by the societal restrictions and expectations of what a woman is supposed to be in Victorian age British society. She’s expected only to learn how do things like draw, play music, be interested in clothes, getting married, having children, and whatever else it is that well to-do British ladies from Victorian age are supposed to be interested in. I personally enjoy historical novels so I had a blast listening to the audiobook. I finished it in just a couple of days. My one annoyance with the book, and this is a minor thing I am nitpicking on….the chapter titles, they were like chapter descriptions and gave a little bit of a spoiler, more like at the end of a TV show you see a “On next week’s episode of…” I don’t know why I found that annoying.

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Spoiler Ridden Review:

Again, I really enjoyed this book, other than the chapter titles and maybe wish there was more development of the side characters, I breezed through his book. I really liked Isabella’s relationship with her husband, Jacob. I’m devastated he died in the first book. I want more of him. Wish I could have seen how their relationship matured and developed. He was so good for her. It was charming how much he loved her and defended her interest as her own person. I liked the tension between Mr. Wilker and Isabella. I liked the old Earl guy and I hope to see more of his grand daughter in the next books. I really enjoyed how the writing was in the style of a historical drama and the audiobook narrator did a fantastic job. Can’t wait for the next books!

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marimoreads's review against another edition

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adventurous informative inspiring mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A fantastical story about the life of an intelligent woman who studies dragons, stays true to who she is, and follows her passions.

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judassilver's review against another edition

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This book did a couple things I didn't enjoy: the retrospective interjection of the narrator recalling past events (the "I may be old now..." or "though I didn't know it then" type) and the fantasy names for what is very clearly our modern world. Call an England an England, please, not "Scirland". Also please note that the memoir part of the title weighs much more heavily than the dragon part, this is very much the story of an upper class woman struggling to foster science minded interests in a world of Victorian sensibilities. Set your expectations accordingly. (Most of the dragons featured are dead, suffering captivity, or being hunted. The MC also has some very classist and colonialist beliefs). This book (and series) is well written and definitely has an audience, I just bounced hard off it.

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merenguita's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful inspiring mysterious medium-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? Yes

4.5

Looooved it!!!
This is the fantasy femenist icon i needed!
Also ;-;

Jacob

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ashe_al's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

This was an enjoyable read, definitely. I liked the way it really felt like I was reading a memoir of a female dragon researcher 'back in the day'. This was what I needed to read when I started it, but towards the third part it started dragging in narrative for me. Picked it up on a train ride again and the ending was alright. I think midway through it was more of a 4/5 and as it got to the third part I just lost interest. I can't tell if it was the writing or just myself.

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booklovingbabe's review against another edition

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adventurous relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.0

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symmetra's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

Dagmira deserved better

But on a more serious note, just very dull, it is clearly inspired by Margaret Fountaine's adapted diaries, 'Love Among the Butterflies', and I would recommend you read that. Weirdly, Fountaine has a way more feminist start - she became independently wealthy when her father died so didn't need a husband to tag along - trying to avoid the class issue isn't a valid excuse because she was still upper class.

Structurally, this divides a memoir into a series format with an adventure per book, versus an adventure per chapter, and that just doesn't work.

There's about as much examination of natural history's colonialism as in Fountaine's work, that is to say none. I think the choice to set it in fantasy-Siberia was an attempt to avoid it at least in this first book (I cannot comment on the sequels), despite the fact the Indigenous peoples of Siberia have similar histories of colonial oppression. I think the author intended the locals to be poor white Russians, as there would certainly be some, undertones, if one were to read them as Indigenous people.

If you liked the setting and want a cool old timey lady who acknowledges colonialism, Ethel Lindgren's story is pretty cool; she was an anthropologist and refused to publish her PhD thesis on Indigenous Siberian religion due to the Soviet crackdowns on religion at the time.

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