To Shape a Dragon's Breath

Objectively, this was a very good book, and I enjoyed listening to it the whole way through. The trouble for me is that it follows a few trends in YA SFF that I'm not super fond of: minimal conflict and discomfort, and a young protagonist with a super-mature emotional intelligence. I'd highly recommend this to young people looking for a fun and interesting fantasy that looks at history through an indigenous lens, because it executes that perfectly, but as someone who likes a bit of grit, and a bit more turmoil in the protagonist's personality, I was let down a bit.

But first, the good stuff: this story does an excellent job of putting a critical eye on the Settler narrative of how Europeans came to North America. It plays out the nuance of how assumptions of supremacy among the Europeans resulted in demeaning interactions at best, and genocidal interactions at the worst. Also, by framing it from the perspective of a young woman from a relatively isolated group, it has excellent commentaries on how indigenous people did not really agree that European culture was superior, and that in a lot of cases, their social structure was more healthy. At the same time, it is honest about differences in technology and bureaucracy, and how there are things the cultures could learn from each other if only they cooperated.

On the whole, I thought the lens through which this story examines Indigenous-European relations in a historical context is brilliant.

I also think the "magic system" is pretty brilliant and unique, and the number of stories within stories bely a depth in the world that hints that as far as magic and backstory, this first book is only scratching the surface of what the world has to offer.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm willing to find out what's to come. The story felt a little too safe for my taste, and there was no sense of urgency at any point really. It has a classic boarding school structure (think Harry Potter) where it starts in the summer and ends when the school year is over, but there is no overriding story arc (think threat of Voldemort) to keep me engaged. Instead, it's 500 pages of "This happens, then this happens, then this happens." In fact, the chapters are even written in that way: They are parts of a sentence, that come together so that if you read each chapter title, you basically get a non-spoilery summary of the book, which is neat, but literally reads as "this happens then that happens...."

While that isn't a flaw in itself, and in fact might be preferable to people who don't like anxiety-inducing narratives, it makes it easy for me to forget about. I would honestly forget about the book entirely if I didn't pick it up for a few days.

I also feel like the main character falls into a trope that I've noticed in YA lately. SFF (mostly Sci-fi) used to have a problem with protagonists always being the "competent, intelligent man," and now that narrative seems to have been replaced by the "bold, emotionally intelligent woman", which is obviously an improvement, and makes for much better role models in fiction. But IMO it also sets unrealistic standards for how girls should act in situations where they are confronting big problems, and puts the onus of correcting others' flaws and, more broadly, the world's problems on them. It also is just unrealistic to expect teenage girls in stressful situations to always remain calm, be aware of others' feelings, and make mindful and well-thought out responses to all situations. The protagonist seems to always say just the right thing, and while it's nice that conflict isn't created simply from people saying the wrong thing, it's also just unrealistic that a 14 year old in a novel and hostile environment will always be in control enough to say the perfect thing.

An example of a more realistic version of this character was from Premee Mohamed in The Annual Migration of Clouds. She was also bold and emotionally intelligent, but often felt overwhelmed and unwilling to be a hero, unsure of what to say or do next, and that flet much more real.