A review by linaria
Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst
2.0
This book, seems like it has it all. Were-dragons and heists, what more can you need? It turns out, you need characters that are more than one-dimensional stereotypes.
The premise is amazing . Dragons like shiny things, so it makes sense that in modern times they would have a hoard of gold. It also makes sense that they would be super paranoid and protective of that treasure, thereby employing high-tech security systems. Of course, dragons want more gold, so were-dragon thieves seems like just about the coolest thing ever.
Except I hated Sky Hawkins, the main character. Her mother disappears during a failed heist, and her family loses status and wealth as a result. So she moans about her loss of wealth as she and her brothers are driving recklessly in a Ferrari. It makes it a wee bit hard to empathize with the main character when really she's still better off than 99% of the human race and whinging about her lack of wealth.
Sky is just so bland. She's the only girl in a family of boys and that trope is played to the extreme. Really, that's all she seems to be. Gabriela is the smart one obsessed with magic. Except, you really never see Gabriela being smart, you just hear her described as smart. Ryan is perhaps the worst. I kept forgetting his name, he was that vanilla. Worm was the only character I was actually interested in, but we got almost no page time with him.
The book picks up a lot around halfway through, after Sky's heist, but by then I honestly had lost a lot of interest. It's not an unexpected twist, and I wish we would have spent more time focusing on that part of the book, rather than the parts that took place in Aspen.
It's a shame. It's an incredibly intriguing concept, but the characters are so bland and one-dimensional that I can't really recommend it.
The premise is amazing . Dragons like shiny things, so it makes sense that in modern times they would have a hoard of gold. It also makes sense that they would be super paranoid and protective of that treasure, thereby employing high-tech security systems. Of course, dragons want more gold, so were-dragon thieves seems like just about the coolest thing ever.
Except I hated Sky Hawkins, the main character. Her mother disappears during a failed heist, and her family loses status and wealth as a result. So she moans about her loss of wealth as she and her brothers are driving recklessly in a Ferrari. It makes it a wee bit hard to empathize with the main character when really she's still better off than 99% of the human race and whinging about her lack of wealth.
Sky is just so bland. She's the only girl in a family of boys and that trope is played to the extreme. Really, that's all she seems to be. Gabriela is the smart one obsessed with magic. Except, you really never see Gabriela being smart, you just hear her described as smart. Ryan is perhaps the worst. I kept forgetting his name, he was that vanilla. Worm was the only character I was actually interested in, but we got almost no page time with him.
The book picks up a lot around halfway through, after Sky's heist, but by then I honestly had lost a lot of interest. It's not an unexpected twist, and I wish we would have spent more time focusing on that part of the book, rather than the parts that took place in Aspen.
It's a shame. It's an incredibly intriguing concept, but the characters are so bland and one-dimensional that I can't really recommend it.