A review by mal_eficent
The Summer Dragon by Todd Lockwood
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I regret reading this, because Lockwood only sent the second book to beta readers in July of this year and I have to now sit and wait for the next one to come out.
I loved this book. The pacing, the setting, the amount of detail in the world building - all of it was exactly my cup of tea. Even Maia, who is undeniably a very self centred, oblivious heroine, was a great character perspective to read from. Plus - dragon rearing. If you like your dragons to be very intelligent animals, this will hopefully be the dragon story for you, and the story itself puts a ton of work into showing how aerie functions season to season.
There were brief lulls in the story and action that focussed more heavily on religion/philosophy, but as the story goes on those moments are used more and more to explain the setting and history of the world than Maia's inner thoughts. Personally I didn't think those moments every overtook the narrative or become a slog to get through.
The only aspect I found strange was the random, single chapter perspective change. Sure, it added a little bit of context for the state of the Dragonry in a different part of the world, but that didn't effect the main narrative at all and could have been left out entirely. I can only assume it's setting up a perspective in book 2.
While I can understand why some people are categorising this as YA: the main character is younger, she's slightly selfish and unaware of it, and some of the conflict she faces seems to be unreasonable sexism. That said, I don't think the narrative itself reads as a YA story. To me this reads like a classic fantasy, coming of age story that was written without an age demographic in mind. There's a decent chunk of gore and described violence in this that, while not 'bad' enough to exclude a YA audience, clearly isn't written for one.
If you enjoy older classic fantasy – like the Belgariad or The Deed of Paksenarrion, or even some of the world themes in the Wheel of Time – but have been wanting a story with a more modern style of prose, I really recommend giving this a try!
I loved this book. The pacing, the setting, the amount of detail in the world building - all of it was exactly my cup of tea. Even Maia, who is undeniably a very self centred, oblivious heroine, was a great character perspective to read from. Plus - dragon rearing. If you like your dragons to be very intelligent animals, this will hopefully be the dragon story for you, and the story itself puts a ton of work into showing how aerie functions season to season.
There were brief lulls in the story and action that focussed more heavily on religion/philosophy, but as the story goes on those moments are used more and more to explain the setting and history of the world than Maia's inner thoughts. Personally I didn't think those moments every overtook the narrative or become a slog to get through.
The only aspect I found strange was the random, single chapter perspective change. Sure, it added a little bit of context for the state of the Dragonry in a different part of the world, but that didn't effect the main narrative at all and could have been left out entirely. I can only assume it's setting up a perspective in book 2.
While I can understand why some people are categorising this as YA: the main character is younger, she's slightly selfish and unaware of it, and some of the conflict she faces seems to be unreasonable sexism. That said, I don't think the narrative itself reads as a YA story. To me this reads like a classic fantasy, coming of age story that was written without an age demographic in mind. There's a decent chunk of gore and described violence in this that, while not 'bad' enough to exclude a YA audience, clearly isn't written for one.
If you enjoy older classic fantasy – like the Belgariad or The Deed of Paksenarrion, or even some of the world themes in the Wheel of Time – but have been wanting a story with a more modern style of prose, I really recommend giving this a try!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Gaslighting, Death of parent, Violence, Gore, and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Misogyny, War, and Murder