carlyjb16's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, War, Vomit, Violence, Sexual content, and Murder
meganpirinen's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I understand what people meant by this is basically a published wattpad book but it’s text book modern fantasy, entertaining and has good plot twists so it’s hard to call it a “bad book”. If you are a book snob and hate fun I definitely wouldn’t recommend this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Death, Gore, Medical trauma, and War
2blueshoes's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This book brought the “dangerous magical school” vibes of Harry Potter and mixed it with the “dystopia and constant death” of Hunger Games. I enjoyed it. I felt weird about it. I had a lot of questions.
The heroine of this book (Violet) is twenty, but reads younger at first in her emotions and lack of experience. As a reader it is gratifying to see her grow and become stronger (both mentally and physically) throughout the book, but it means she’s a difficult character to get to know - she is developing and changing so quickly it’s hard to pin her down. She’s weak then feisty, strategically clever and then angsty and recklessly plunging into danger. It feels like you are reading about twenty years of someone’s life, instead of one. By the end, Violet is undeniably a badass, and speaks her mind (especially to the men in her life) in a way that had me texting cheer emojis and sharing screen shots.
Although there are multiple heroes in this book, the only one that anyone cares about is Xaden. It’s clear from the start he’s a love interest, and Violet is immediately and unwavering in her desire to… uh, ride his dragon. The sexual tension didn’t absolutely wow me in this book, but all the right elements for a dishy shadow zaddy romance are there. Xaden reminds me so much of Reven, the hero in Liar’s Crown, but he’s definitely a more morally questionable character. (I’m always low key wishing heroes could be badass and also not murder people, but that doesn’t really jive with the tone of the book. So, prepare yourself to not love everything he does.)
If you are someone who needs to know how complicated magical worlds work straight away, this book will test your patience. I had questions all the way through, and even after finishing the book many aren’t answered (what is up with the white hair thing?) That said, the world building is impressive, and differs from any magical school or dragon stories I’ve ever read. I enjoyed the scenes with the dragons SO much, and found their complicated personalities and lore the best part.
This book is really long, but I didn’t find myself bored or skipping scenes. I loved how much we got to explore in just book one of the series - and can’t wait for the next.
The heroine of this book (Violet) is twenty, but reads younger at first in her emotions and lack of experience. As a reader it is gratifying to see her grow and become stronger (both mentally and physically) throughout the book, but it means she’s a difficult character to get to know - she is developing and changing so quickly it’s hard to pin her down. She’s weak then feisty, strategically clever and then angsty and recklessly plunging into danger. It feels like you are reading about twenty years of someone’s life, instead of one. By the end, Violet is undeniably a badass, and speaks her mind (especially to the men in her life) in a way that had me texting cheer emojis and sharing screen shots.
Although there are multiple heroes in this book, the only one that anyone cares about is Xaden.
Spoiler
(That’s a lie, I’m obsessed with Liam bring him back please).If you are someone who needs to know how complicated magical worlds work straight away, this book will test your patience. I had questions all the way through, and even after finishing the book many aren’t answered (what is up with the white hair thing?) That said, the world building is impressive, and differs from any magical school or dragon stories I’ve ever read. I enjoyed the scenes with the dragons SO much, and found their complicated personalities and lore the best part.
This book is really long, but I didn’t find myself bored or skipping scenes. I loved how much we got to explore in just book one of the series - and can’t wait for the next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Animal death, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Misogyny, Sexual content, Murder, Toxic friendship, Blood, Bullying, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Death of parent, Vomit, and War
ashleighisreading's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Animal death, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Murder, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Death, Ableism, Bullying, and War
lakinglaze's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is my most favourite book I’ve ever read now. I just loved every single thing about it. I will forever be completely mad for this world and these characters. Thank you Rebecca Yarros! I can’t wait for all the books to come!! Xaden is the dark Mr. Darcy I never knew I needed.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Violence, Vomit, War, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Death, and Fire/Fire injury
gphemsley's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Vomit, War, Sexual content, Blood, Chronic illness, Genocide, Classism, Gore, Cursing, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racism, Medical trauma, and Violence
sarah_simpkins's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual content, Blood, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Murder, Toxic relationship, and War
Minor: Vomit and Death of parent
athenian_frog's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
*I listened to the audiobook for most of this story before reading the rest online*
+ Besides voicing the bigger male dragon, the audiobook was solid. The feminine narrator did a great job communicating emotion in action and during tense scenes.
+ The action scenes were fun to read, usually.
+ the actual concept with dragons, dragon bonding, was actually pretty interesting!
Other than that, I had a hard time finishing the book :(
- The characters just don’t do that much growing, if ANY. The main character’s motivation to change her study trajectory is purely out of being forced to go training by her mother. I saw very little organic self motivation to become a dragon rider until the latter half of the book. The side characters were also not fleshed out at ALL.
- we never find out why the mother wanted to send the main character, who suffers from chronic pain, to try and ride a dragon. I don’t know why she spent so long letting her daughter train as a scribe before suddenly making another decision.
- we don’t get to know the main character at all outside of the war college, which ends up setting no precedent to what she was like before entering a life changing, dangerous experience (a good set up for character development that was NOT taken)
- There were several opportunities to add depth to the story and characters and Yarros took none of them.
- LGBTQIA+ people and people of color are included but they have very little substance to them.
- In fact, the guy who wants Violet (protagonist) dead the most doesn’t even seem to have a proper reason to want to kill her; he is just evil like that, I guess?
- Conceptualizing the world was very difficult, because we as the reader have 0 help except through awkward information dumping. It feels very tedious to read, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t even tell you what kind of technological period they’re in. Religion is also very underdeveloped.
- the other quadrants (healing, scribing, infantry) were very underutilized, and were not very detailed
- the protagonist seems stupendously lucky. Will not spoil here but expect major chosen one/main character privileges. She is constantly complimented for being the smartest, but we see very little evidence of this.
- while at a killing school, in a culture that is weirdly very permissive of killing, Violet is extremely sensitive about killing people! Not even innocents, people who are ACTIVELY trying to end her life.
- Violet is disabled but this disability is rarely mentioned, and its applications are barely referenced. There is a consensus of “pushing through” your disability to prevail instead of working with it, which feels a bit insensitive.
- there are enough cliche’s and contrivances in the book where it starts to hurt the “turn off your brain to have fun” experience, even. Many elements are foreshadowed in a poor/hamfisted way, and conflict often feels artificially incited/blown up.
- we know very little about supporting cast and how they each became close to Violet is not very well developed.
- the romance between Violet and her love interest is plainly just lust. I found very little emotional connection between them before the story was trying to pass it off as a deep, swoon worthy romance. On top of all of my issues with Violet, this made the sex scenes impossible to care for. This is part of a multi book series, so some time to stretch out the romance emotionally would have done wonders.
- romance and romantic scenes involve a lot of emphasis on skinny, pale, fragile main woman and the big, tan, intimidating male love interest. The reminders that he could hurt her were overused and not appealing. Personally I have grown tired of this dynamic. I would have liked to see them working together more/Violet making smart moves ahead of him/them actually BONDING in not a strictly sexual sense.
- calling this enemies to lovers is generous. The main pairing certainly had the potential to be enemies but it’s more like “bad first impression to lovers”
All in all, I desperately wanted to enjoy this book. It looks beautiful and I was very excited to read something involving dragons for the first time in a looooong time. The issues kept mounting and eventually it made flaws that were less noticeable glaringly evident.
If you loved this book I’m overjoyed for you! It’s a really cool concept, and I’ve heard others who are able to overlook most of this to just sit in the vibes.
I just think that this FANTASY ROMANCE really could have used more work in all aspects of FANTASY and ROMANCE. Both were so undeveloped here that it was almost disrespectful. On top of that, it is geared towards a “New Adult,” older than YA audience, so I was expecting at least a LITTLE more nuance here.
Thank you for reading my two cents!
Please consider the warnings listed below!
+ Besides voicing the bigger male dragon, the audiobook was solid. The feminine narrator did a great job communicating emotion in action and during tense scenes.
+ The action scenes were fun to read, usually.
+ the actual concept with dragons, dragon bonding, was actually pretty interesting!
Other than that, I had a hard time finishing the book :(
- The characters just don’t do that much growing, if ANY. The main character’s motivation to change her study trajectory is purely out of being forced to go training by her mother. I saw very little organic self motivation to become a dragon rider until the latter half of the book. The side characters were also not fleshed out at ALL.
- we never find out why the mother wanted to send the main character, who suffers from chronic pain, to try and ride a dragon. I don’t know why she spent so long letting her daughter train as a scribe before suddenly making another decision.
- we don’t get to know the main character at all outside of the war college, which ends up setting no precedent to what she was like before entering a life changing, dangerous experience (a good set up for character development that was NOT taken)
- There were several opportunities to add depth to the story and characters and Yarros took none of them.
- LGBTQIA+ people and people of color are included but they have very little substance to them.
- In fact, the guy who wants Violet (protagonist) dead the most doesn’t even seem to have a proper reason to want to kill her; he is just evil like that, I guess?
- Conceptualizing the world was very difficult, because we as the reader have 0 help except through awkward information dumping. It feels very tedious to read, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t even tell you what kind of technological period they’re in. Religion is also very underdeveloped.
- the other quadrants (healing, scribing, infantry) were very underutilized, and were not very detailed
- the protagonist seems stupendously lucky. Will not spoil here but expect major chosen one/main character privileges. She is constantly complimented for being the smartest, but we see very little evidence of this.
- while at a killing school, in a culture that is weirdly very permissive of killing, Violet is extremely sensitive about killing people! Not even innocents, people who are ACTIVELY trying to end her life.
- Violet is disabled but this disability is rarely mentioned, and its applications are barely referenced. There is a consensus of “pushing through” your disability to prevail instead of working with it, which feels a bit insensitive.
- there are enough cliche’s and contrivances in the book where it starts to hurt the “turn off your brain to have fun” experience, even. Many elements are foreshadowed in a poor/hamfisted way, and conflict often feels artificially incited/blown up.
- we know very little about supporting cast and how they each became close to Violet is not very well developed.
- the romance between Violet and her love interest is plainly just lust. I found very little emotional connection between them before the story was trying to pass it off as a deep, swoon worthy romance. On top of all of my issues with Violet, this made the sex scenes impossible to care for. This is part of a multi book series, so some time to stretch out the romance emotionally would have done wonders.
- romance and romantic scenes involve a lot of emphasis on skinny, pale, fragile main woman and the big, tan, intimidating male love interest. The reminders that he could hurt her were overused and not appealing. Personally I have grown tired of this dynamic. I would have liked to see them working together more/Violet making smart moves ahead of him/them actually BONDING in not a strictly sexual sense.
- calling this enemies to lovers is generous. The main pairing certainly had the potential to be enemies but it’s more like “bad first impression to lovers”
All in all, I desperately wanted to enjoy this book. It looks beautiful and I was very excited to read something involving dragons for the first time in a looooong time. The issues kept mounting and eventually it made flaws that were less noticeable glaringly evident.
If you loved this book I’m overjoyed for you! It’s a really cool concept, and I’ve heard others who are able to overlook most of this to just sit in the vibes.
I just think that this FANTASY ROMANCE really could have used more work in all aspects of FANTASY and ROMANCE. Both were so undeveloped here that it was almost disrespectful. On top of that, it is geared towards a “New Adult,” older than YA audience, so I was expecting at least a LITTLE more nuance here.
Thank you for reading my two cents!
Please consider the warnings listed below!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Sexual content
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Chronic illness, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, and War
Minor: Medical content, Drug use, and Vomit
-Death of several background characters, in varying ways (neck snapping, falling off bridge, incineration by dragon fire, close combat). -there is a kissing scene with dubious consent as both parties are under a kind of magical influence. - explicit sex happens twice in the latter half of the book between main characters. There are several mentions of how the male lead can physically hurt/overwhelm Violet, and this can be potentially distressing for someone to read. All other sex among the side characters is only implicit. - several background characters are poisoned, not to kill, resulting in sickness and vomiting. - Violet has a chronic connective tissue disease. This results in some tearing and bruising that is painful. -one character has to have their shoulder magically mended by a healer. It is descriptively painful. - there are bully type characters who try to hurt/kill Violet several times. One is particular is very aggressive. - Children of individuals who started a rebellion in the past are made orphans. This is an accepted part of the country’s history. - brief use of a weed equivalent drugmattiedancer's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Writing: 3⭐️/5
The writing was there. I’m a big quote person. Generally, I write down at least one quote from every novel I read, one line that just felt so beautiful and powerful I can’t resist putting it in my notes app to look back on it later. I don’t have a single one for this book. And that’s not to say it’s poorly written. It’s more of the opposite: it was well-written, but unremarkable. It existed to serve both the plot and the characters and, while that means there was nothing terribly wrong with the writing, it was not the book’s strong point either.
Beyond that, I believe the novel started at maybe the worst possible start. I either needed more of Violet’s life before joining the Riders or less. I had a sliver of it, and it served only to push back the action without doing any concrete service to the characters or the plot.
Characters: 4⭐️/5
Alright. Xader is amazing. Love him. Perfection, don’t change a thing. Our main character, Violet or Violence: she’s very awesome, but I felt like her inconsistencies as a character were pushed off as ‘character growth.’ I saw no scribe here, despite everyone’s insistence that there was one. I saw a nerdy girl with a love of reading, but not a scribe, and it bothered me for the first half of the novel, despite loving the strengthening and self-improvement of our MC. The side characters felt forgotten at times and well-fleshed out at others. And Dain. He’s believable to a point, but I really had a hard time taking him seriously after a while because he was too easy to hate. I wanted a bit more out of him. But also, I had fun with the characters, and I’m pretty sure most fantasy-novel lovers would, too.
Plot: 3.5⭐️/5
A world with a strict government that is allowing the death of many innocents. A girl who is exceptional in her powers, despite looking small and weak. A rebellion alliance that is gaining traction. A love interest who is forced upon our main character. It’s a lot of things I’ve seen before, and a lot of things I’ve seen before together. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun reading the plot, but I found myself often a bit bored with the tropes and overused plot points. At one point I found myself wondering why we can’t have a functional government in fantasy novels. After all, it is fantasy. And the fact that I spent a portion of the novel daydreaming is probably not the best evidence for a fully engaging and exciting plot.
World: 4.5⭐️/5
Can’t help but add a whole category to my review process in order to tell you about this world. I was intrigued and enthralled by this world. I loved the dragons and, even more, I loved that the dragons rule this world. I enjoyed the powers, the explanation of the academy, and the vibrancy of the processes the dragon riders had to undergo. I tired a bit of the exceptionalism of the world – I don’t need an explanation of fertility suppressants, personally. We can just call birth control, birth control – but otherwise, I found it fun, exciting, and intriguing.
Who Should Read This Book?
- Fans of ACOTAR & TOG
- Fans of dragon-centered books
- Readers not deterred by a few tropes and predictable plots
- Someone looking for a fast and fun fantasy read
Content Warnings?
- Death, sexual content, death of parent, grief, torture, murder, fire/fire injury, blood, ableism, violence, war, bullying
Post-Reading Rating: 4.25⭐️/5
Will read the next book; however, I am not excited for us to pretend to be mad at the main love interest for the first bit.
Final Rating: 4⭐️/5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, War, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Vomit, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cursing, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Bullying, Child death, Classism, Death, and Gaslighting
theaa_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Vomit