A review by portapages
Eon by Alison Goodman

adventurous tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Let me start with the good. The world building is amazing. I feel like I am in another era while reading the book, and I can almost smell the grass, timber, and steamed buns in the story. Speaking of, Eon has a very exciting story. I constantly need to know what happens next. However, a lot of this is driven by me, the reader, having already figured everything out, desperately reading on so that Eona will get to figuring it out.

Something else that really strikes me is how obvious it is that the book is written by a tourist into Chinese and Japanese culture. There is a lot she gets right, but it is still described with an exoticism and an otherness that makes it obvious it's from someone with an outside eye.

The final disappointment is a spoiler,
when Eona finally joins with her dragon, she magically heals from her disability, and this is celebrated.
This convenient way of handling it is so disappointing, because that was never what was holding Eona back. It would have been much more powerful if her rise to power embraces all the physical things that are supposed to set her back.
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