Sterling Parker
Predictable and trope-y, but also creative and engaging. I enjoyed the dragon lore and world setting, and the characters feel unique and identifiable with reasonably clear motivations/rationale. Enjoyed less the cartoonishly edgy tone; it felt really tryhard and forced sometimes.
More generally, characters touching explicitly on topics like "consent" and "toxicity" is a good way to score points with Tumblr and BookTok but feels really out of place in the setting. I feel it could have been handled more subtly. I also can't quite tell if the ridiculously over-the-top "training" is a critique/satire of warrior cult mentality, or a genuine rule-of-cool expression of it. Doesn't help that the main character's perspective is so completely normalized to the culture that she barely even questions it.
But, questions perhaps the sequels will answer. I'm intrigued enough to keep going.
Predictable and trope-y, but also creative and engaging. I enjoyed the dragon lore and world setting, and the characters feel unique and identifiable with reasonably clear motivations/rationale. Enjoyed less the cartoonishly edgy tone; it felt really tryhard and forced sometimes.
More generally, characters touching explicitly on topics like "consent" and "toxicity" is a good way to score points with Tumblr and BookTok but feels really out of place in the setting. I feel it could have been handled more subtly. I also can't quite tell if the ridiculously over-the-top "training" is a critique/satire of warrior cult mentality, or a genuine rule-of-cool expression of it. Doesn't help that the main character's perspective is so completely normalized to the culture that she barely even questions it.
But, questions perhaps the sequels will answer. I'm intrigued enough to keep going.
