5th August 2023

I picked up this TikTok sensation on the second opportunity, because people on the internet would not stop talking about it. And because it has dragons.

It’s the story of a young woman who against her will has to attend a dangerous military academy to learn to become a dragon rider. While there she meets a wide variety of fellow students from diverse backgrounds, and forms relationships of a variety of kinds with them as she tries to survive and thrive.

I found it to be very readable for the first three quarters, although there were places where I felt it a bit rough - and some places where it felt like some more foreshadowing would have made things a bit less deus ex machina.

The final quarter lost me though. There are two sequences back to back which, while definitely foreshadowed, I felt were unnecessarily explicit to continue telling the story. I feel like these both raise the minimum age at which people should feel comfortable with children reading.

And then the climax involved the type of scene which I’ve learnt that I find really hard to read. The sort of action where every word counts, and that’s just not something I find easy to take in. But that’s on me rather than the narrative.

So in all, it’s readable, and I can see why it’s become as popular as it has - but I’ve read more compelling, more readable, and more enjoyable stuff this year which I’d definitely recommend over it.

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