Cassandre

I think a younger audience might like this book, but I don't want to recommend it to tweens or teens because it holds up the terrible Twilight fantasy that the ONE MAGICAL BOY is what makes life worth living.

The book suffers from inconsistent and incomplete world-building (does she have hands or talons? do all dragons have hair?) and frequent repetition of Jacinda's angst about returning to her people, her romantic interest, her love of her mother and her sister. The simply cycles through these feelings until it reaches the moment when all is revealed (a twist that can be guessed halfway through the novel).

Look, I'm a fan of YA. But this is terrible YA. Worse than Twilight by a factor of 10. Please, please, please delve into another series.

In the end, there was so much repetition of angst that it was hard to take the story seriously. This book needed some serious editing. It was also shallow in its depiction of Southern small town life. We know that Ama is black, yet there are no other black characters in the novel to flesh out the DAR coterie. It also seems as though the big reveal at the end doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't her Uncle Macon want to educate Lena about what lies in front of her? There are interesting ideas here, but in the end, it's far too angsty to be compelling. The world building also needs some work.

Yes. I am done with anything smacking of Twilight for a while. I should have known better, but I thought the gothic element would be a nice twist. Not so much.