2025 Reading Challenge discussion

Tell us what you thought of the book! You can leave your review here. Even if you read the book outside of the group, please feel free to let us know what you thought of it.

Please make sure to mark your spoilers by typing [spoiler] at the start and [/spoiler] at the end but replacing the [] with <>.

2.5 stars rounded up for the amount of time I spent reading this and I don't want to admit to myself that I read an 800-page book that was 2 stars.

5-star Things
The magic system is unique and interesting. (view spoiler)[There are 2 types: siden and serran (or something like that). Siden is from the orange tree and you get it from eating the fruit. Serran is from stars and is part of the dragons' magic I think? I wish it had been fleshed out a little more naturally. The section that explains the magic was pretty expository. (hide spoiler)]

4-star Things
The story. (view spoiler)[There is a lot going on and I had to take copious notes through at least half of the book to keep everything straight. There are a lot of characters in a lot of different places with a lot of different ties to different groups. So it might take a little bit more effort than say, a Sarah J. Maas story, but it was mostly worth it if you can keep track of all those moving parts. However, by the end when everyone has converged in one place I was ready for it to be done and I probably couldn't tell you exactly what ended up happening to everyone. There's a lot of build-up for a fairly quick ending. (hide spoiler)]

3-star Things
The dragons. (view spoiler)[For a book with one on the cover, there are disappointingly few dragons. There are a bunch of nameless wyverns, wyrms, etc. There's a bad one: Fyredel or something. And then there is Nayimathun, the only good dragon who is an actual character and not just background. And she's hardly around. Also, I really don't think the multitude of dragon-types was necessary. They kept mentioning a bunch and only 3 were in any prevalent to the story. (hide spoiler)]

2-star Things
The characters. (view spoiler)[At the beginning I liked Tané and Ead because you're supposed to. But there really isn't much introspection or development from any of the characters. They all read a bit wooden or formal. I think Sabran was probably the most human of all of them. She showed hopes and fears and emotions, and she wasn't even a POV character! Maybe that's why. The POV characters had the luxury of telling us how they felt so they didn't need to show it. (hide spoiler)]

1-star Things
The pacing. (view spoiler)[Part of the reason the characters just didn't work is because the pacing is ALL off. At first there is a fairly even smattering of POV's from Ead, Tané, Niclays, and Loth. This shifts dramatically to almost all Ead with a little bit of the other three peppered in. I liked Ead's storyline but parts of it were painfully slow when I really would have preferred more with Tané. Why are we focusing on Ead's growing relationship with Sabran when there is a literal dragon kidnapped by pirates we could be focusing on?? Then, like I said above, suddenly the ending with everyone was jarring. Maybe I would have cared more about everyone involved if they had been equally involved. (hide spoiler)]

4 stars from me, I really like the ending full of hope and that the good won. Even though it’s such a long book, I didn’t get bored once, really liked the eastern atmosphere and how the different characters eventually came together.