Helpful Score: 1
Reviewed by Bibliophile's Bestiary Blog at bibliophile-bestiary.blogspot.com
The worst thing about this book is that I have to wait almost a year for the second one! The horror! This book was incredible. When you first start reading about it, you don't know if it is present day or in the past, or in the future. I won't give any secrets away about that because it was one of my favorite things starting to read this book. This world of human dragons so pulled me in. It was a beautiful description. The heartache and love throughout the book was incredible. I couldn't put it down. A few things I would have changed about Jacinda's decisions, but I am ok with the things that happened. It was a wonderful, wonderful book! 5 out of 5 stars!
The worst thing about this book is that I have to wait almost a year for the second one! The horror! This book was incredible. When you first start reading about it, you don't know if it is present day or in the past, or in the future. I won't give any secrets away about that because it was one of my favorite things starting to read this book. This world of human dragons so pulled me in. It was a beautiful description. The heartache and love throughout the book was incredible. I couldn't put it down. A few things I would have changed about Jacinda's decisions, but I am ok with the things that happened. It was a wonderful, wonderful book! 5 out of 5 stars!
Helpful Score: 1
LOVED this book. A girl dragon who sounds beautiful! I cant wait til the rest of the series comes out. Probably in Top 5 of 2010. I really loved this book. Action and suspense were off the charts. Im obsessed with this book. Please write them faster Sophie!!!!
Helpful Score: 1
I was excited to read this book and have heard a lot of great things about it. I finally borrowed it from the library. It was a quick read and the writing style was very readable. It is another one of those star-crossed teen stories. It was cool that the main heroine can shift into a dragon but not so cool that the story was very similar to other YA star-crossed love stories out there.
Jacinda is a draki and extraordinary among her race because she is a rare Firebreather. Her mother and her sister aren't draki though; and her mother especially wants Jacinda to let her draki part die. Her mother forces Jacinda and her twin sister Tamra to flee the clan and take up residence in a smallish desert town. There Jacinda bumps into a boy named Will, a dragon hunter, whom she is drawn to like no other.
This book is set in modern times and a lot of it takes place in a high school setting where Jacinda is dealing with trying to blend into a new high school, pretty standard teen stuff. Jacinda also has to deal with the fact that whenever she is near Will he brings out her draki nature (makes her glow and get all hot...literally). Jacinda starts the story as a spirited character and then kind of turns all plain and boring; she doesn't stand up to her mother or really do anything other than just drag her feet through the book.
I found it disturbing that Jacinda's mom wanted her daughter to kill part of herself off throughout the book. This gave the book a very yucky feeling to me and seemed completely counter-intuitive to how a mom would treat her daughter. Definitely not a healthy mother/daughter relationship there.
The whole Will and Jacinda relationship is the type of relationship that I hate seeing in YA books. They basically fall in love at first sight; for no apparent reason. Then Jacinda is all "Will stay away from me!" and then a few pages later "Oh, Will I want you." then a little bit later she wants him to stay away again. It is maddening and obnoxious. Will is your run of the mill stalker, and follows Jacinda everywhere...even breaking into her house. How is this romantic? Then of course their relationship is starcrossed because Jacinda gets so hot when she is with Will that she almost burns him alive...how will they ever be able to be together?! I didn't like any aspect of their relationship.
The book is pretty much predictable from beginning to end. As for the world-building, there isn't much of it. There is some mention of clans outside of Jacinda's, but not much and there isn't much history given on the draki. The book really just focuses on the social teen aspects of high school and Jacinda and Will's starcrossed relationship.
The book ends with a number of things unresolved and really doesn't give any closure on anything. So if you read this, and enjoy it, be prepared to immediately pick-up Vanish (the 2nd book in the series) when it comes out in September to see what happens. Jordan's writing style is easy to read, if a bit too simple at times (no complex sentences or large words).
Overall this book was not one of my favorites. I was so excited to read a book about dragons and what I got was yet another mediocre story about high school teen angst and star-crossed love. This is one of those books where the most positive thing about it for me was that it was a quick read. If you are a fan of teen stories that focus on high school life with a couple that inexplicably falls in starcrossed love for no reason and has shapeshifting dragons in it this may be the book for you. Personally I will stick with other more interesting stories. For a great YA read check out Divergent by Veronica Roth, Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready, Nightshade by Andrea Cremer, or Paranomalcy by Kiersten White.
Jacinda is a draki and extraordinary among her race because she is a rare Firebreather. Her mother and her sister aren't draki though; and her mother especially wants Jacinda to let her draki part die. Her mother forces Jacinda and her twin sister Tamra to flee the clan and take up residence in a smallish desert town. There Jacinda bumps into a boy named Will, a dragon hunter, whom she is drawn to like no other.
This book is set in modern times and a lot of it takes place in a high school setting where Jacinda is dealing with trying to blend into a new high school, pretty standard teen stuff. Jacinda also has to deal with the fact that whenever she is near Will he brings out her draki nature (makes her glow and get all hot...literally). Jacinda starts the story as a spirited character and then kind of turns all plain and boring; she doesn't stand up to her mother or really do anything other than just drag her feet through the book.
I found it disturbing that Jacinda's mom wanted her daughter to kill part of herself off throughout the book. This gave the book a very yucky feeling to me and seemed completely counter-intuitive to how a mom would treat her daughter. Definitely not a healthy mother/daughter relationship there.
The whole Will and Jacinda relationship is the type of relationship that I hate seeing in YA books. They basically fall in love at first sight; for no apparent reason. Then Jacinda is all "Will stay away from me!" and then a few pages later "Oh, Will I want you." then a little bit later she wants him to stay away again. It is maddening and obnoxious. Will is your run of the mill stalker, and follows Jacinda everywhere...even breaking into her house. How is this romantic? Then of course their relationship is starcrossed because Jacinda gets so hot when she is with Will that she almost burns him alive...how will they ever be able to be together?! I didn't like any aspect of their relationship.
The book is pretty much predictable from beginning to end. As for the world-building, there isn't much of it. There is some mention of clans outside of Jacinda's, but not much and there isn't much history given on the draki. The book really just focuses on the social teen aspects of high school and Jacinda and Will's starcrossed relationship.
The book ends with a number of things unresolved and really doesn't give any closure on anything. So if you read this, and enjoy it, be prepared to immediately pick-up Vanish (the 2nd book in the series) when it comes out in September to see what happens. Jordan's writing style is easy to read, if a bit too simple at times (no complex sentences or large words).
Overall this book was not one of my favorites. I was so excited to read a book about dragons and what I got was yet another mediocre story about high school teen angst and star-crossed love. This is one of those books where the most positive thing about it for me was that it was a quick read. If you are a fan of teen stories that focus on high school life with a couple that inexplicably falls in starcrossed love for no reason and has shapeshifting dragons in it this may be the book for you. Personally I will stick with other more interesting stories. For a great YA read check out Divergent by Veronica Roth, Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready, Nightshade by Andrea Cremer, or Paranomalcy by Kiersten White.
