Quick-take: Brutal. Dragons. Romance.

Dan's Review

Violet Sorrengaile has been studying for years to become a scribe, a well-respected though perhaps not very glamorous profession.

Yet, at the last minute when it came time to choose her discipline, her mom, a famous general, "volun-told" her to join the Rider program. All the Sorrengailes are Riders, the most dangerous and most prestigious faction, and General Mom will not tolerate Violet being different.

What follows is completely bonkers to me. Why would a school ever be set up this way? It is one thing to have a few overly difficult classes designed to "weed out" students that should probably rethink their career aspirations. It is another matter to MURDER the students.

There is no other way to put it. This school basically allows cold-blooded murder. The reasoning? If you are not savvy enough to avoid getting murdered, you probably should not be a Rider. This stinks of "you should've bought a better lock" victim blaming when someone gets robbed. However, the victim is now DEAD.

It is not just the students. There are a series of obstacle courses and other challenges. Failure is once again death. Like... couldn't the school put a net underneath the narrow bridge? If you fall, then you are sent to another faction? You know, rather than die?

If you happen to survive all the way, and by some estimates, that is less than a third, then your reward is your own dragon to ride into battle and for fun.

I suppose that is an epic reward, but I still think it could be done with less needless brutality. Sparring matches seem to end with the loser being sent to the ER (or cremated). The teachers just accept it. Why are they letting their next generation of soldiers get permanent injuries? A sparring match ended with 5 broken bones. For what purpose?

I'm so annoyed. I have to stop complaining and just accept it. Setting that nonsense to the side, how is the story? Violet is an academic among a sea of fighters. Since she can't win purely hand-to-hand (she is a bit small), she has to find other means. Her 2 advantages are she is (probably) smarter than most of them, and she has a lot of family that already went through this program. She can access their insights to augment her own. She exercises those advantages quite well in the story.

That was the first half of the book. The second half focused a lot on Violet's relationship with Xaden. This eventually goes into steamy graphic romance scenes. I had no idea I picked up that kind of book. It was a surprise. I do not care for this kind of content. I am not claiming any moral superiority by saying that. I just do not enjoy it. However, I might make a mild exception to at least one of the scenes. The dialog and other things during it were so ridiculous I was laughing out loud.

Score: 3/5. If the Xaden romance was dropped, it might be a 4. I have no desire for book 2. The big surprise setting up the next book triggered a big yawn for me. No thanks.