This book is amazing! Would highly recommend!!

Well, if you put dragons in a book and you have humans interacting with them you're pretty guaranteed to have me at least trying the book out. A determined young woman seeks to rescue her girlfriend from the empire they live in and along the way finds herself.
I'm a sucker for dragons and this ticked several boxes. Interesting to see a bisexual character feature and to have a different love triangle and a very cute baby dragon. ( )

I feel like this book is a little mis-sold. Both the cover copy and all the recommendations for it that I've seen emphasize the f/f romance, but in fact it's f/f/m, with the f/f established and largely off-screen while the m/f is center stage getting all the typical YA budding-romance plot beats. The male love interest isn't even mentioned in any of the marketing. I support YA novels featuring poly relationships on principle, though it's not something I'm particularly personally interested in (especially in this gender combination), but I think the way this book is being portrayed is going to make it so that it doesn't find its way into the hands of some of the people who would love it, while also disappointing readers who wanted a focus on f/f. ( )

The good points -- girls in love! normalized same-sex couples! POC characters! dragons! heroine learning to value herself!

The rest -- I found this to be a relatively unremarkable read. It's fine. It tells a decent story. I think it's definitely one that could be appealing to teens. I wanted to know what would happen next.

I did feel a sinking disappointment when it looks like Maren is going to fall for the disguised prince (of course he is a disguised prince) and as a bi person, that should not cause me much dismay. However, honestly, must you set up a love triangle, just because it's YA? And must that love triangle possibly model choosing heteronormative romance over the early lesbian love? I'm hoping that they work out a poly relationship -- that would be cool. I'd have to read another book in the series to find out what happens. If I get over my fantasy-slump I might look that up.

Advanced reader's copy provided by Edelweiss. ( )

This book has all of the ingredients, but didn't work for me.


Ingredients: f/f romance, bisexual heroine, DRAGONS


But... the female love interest is taken away from their village at the beginning of the book and the main character's epic quest is to get her back. This is all well and good, but we don't see the love interest again until the last few pages of the book. Major bummer.


Worse? There's a boy with a big secret (you will easily figure it out) and they're eventually on the trip together... and flirting. There's so much flirting that it felt like cheating. The MC is even thinking about how she's not really cheating? But maybe? It's a love triangle which is not for everyone, but I'm definitely more into LT's if the MC isn't already in a relationship with one of them. I'm also pretty solidly over the conceit that the MC is attractive to literally every person she meets, and I had a hard time separating the love triangle from the stereotype that bisexuals are cheaters.

So. Dragons are good. I like dragons. And this book has the trappings of a traditional epic fantasy series, but with Asian and queer rep.

A lot of people have enjoyed it, so maybe check out some other reviews.

Content Warnings: sort of kidnapping?, lots of violence, fear of poisoning


Suzanne received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )