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A review by fleurdujour
The Story of Owen by Emily Kate Johnston
3.0
Probably my favorite thing about this book was the dragons. I loved this carbon eating twist E.K. Johnston used, and the vast amounts of different dragons that existed and that you could actually recognize because she made so many distinct varieties. I probably could have read a book that was nothing but dragon attack after dragon attack, but unfortunately we also had the high school side of the story to deal with.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. But I just found that the story was bogged down at times by the high school minutia that didn't really drive the story forward at all. Also I thought it was super odd that there was such a large revelation but then nothing came of it. At. All. And it really annoyed me.
I also found that most of the time I really didn't care for Owen or Siobhan because there really wasn't all that much about them to care about. Owen hardly had any character development the entire book. He remained the golden child dragon-slayer-in-training which was rather bland because he never seriously messed up at anything. And I just didn't get why Siobhan would be a good bard. Yes, she is musically gifted, but she only uses that skill once throughout the book and the rest of her interactions in her "job" is all through telling reporters stories.
I did find it refreshing that we didn't have an Owen and Siobhan romance because it would have come off as completely forced. That being said, I don't see why there needed to be that story line with Owen and Emily because we only see them interact for .2 pages maybe.
If you like unique takes on dragons and alternate universes with cleverly altered history, then you should give this book a try!
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. But I just found that the story was bogged down at times by the high school minutia that didn't really drive the story forward at all. Also I thought it was super odd that there was such a large revelation
Spoiler
that Emily wanted to become an actual dragon slayerSpoiler
Because how hard would it have been to add her into the hatching ground battle?I also found that most of the time I really didn't care for Owen or Siobhan because there really wasn't all that much about them to care about. Owen hardly had any character development the entire book. He remained the golden child dragon-slayer-in-training which was rather bland because he never seriously messed up at anything. And I just didn't get why Siobhan would be a good bard. Yes, she is musically gifted, but she only uses that skill once throughout the book and the rest of her interactions in her "job" is all through telling reporters stories.
I did find it refreshing that we didn't have an Owen and Siobhan romance because it would have come off as completely forced. That being said, I don't see why there needed to be that story line with Owen and Emily because we only see them interact for .2 pages maybe.
If you like unique takes on dragons and alternate universes with cleverly altered history, then you should give this book a try!