**Starred Review** PublishersWeekly
**Starred Review** BookList
**Starred Review** SchoolLibraryJournal
**Starred Review** HornBook
**Starred Review** BookList
**Starred Review** SchoolLibraryJournal
**Starred Review** HornBook
**Starred Review** Kirkus
Dragons!
Okay, there are lots of dragon books out there. But even Tamora Pierce and Christopher Paolini sat up and took notice of this one; going so far as to submit their own reviews. And Seraphina received a bouquet of STARRED reviews from the best journals. The reason being, in my opinion, Rachel Hartman's wonderful prose and excellent world-building.
BACKGROUND
- First there was terrible war, but now a tentative peace exists between humans and dragons. You would think that 40 years of peace would have won over stronger advocates for it's continuance, but prejudices run deep and it wouldn't take much to set off either side, and for hostilities to break out.
- Seraphina lives at court in this world. The queen who first gained the truce still rules, but now she is a grandmother, and Serphina gives her spirited granddaughter music lessons. Seraphina knows dragons more intimately than others. She has a dragon for an instructor in science and math, and her father is the kingdom's legal council on all things dragon.
- Seraphina desires to live a quiet life, but that's not to be. As soon as the Prince is found dead, with his head missing, she is drawn into the mystery of who did it (human or dragon) and why.
OF SPECIAL INTEREST
What's interesting is that the dragons can transform into human form. It's not something they're perfect at. Young dragons are easily identifiable, but old dragons can nearly pass without notice. That they don't has something to do with their culture. Dragons are 'Vulcan-esque' in philosophy. And StarTrek's Spock, they find emotions unpleasant and to be avoidable. A problem, they find, since when they take human form, our gushing endocrine system affects them.
I liked Seraphina. The writing and world building is very good. In fact, Hartman's wordsmithing reminds me of Rae Carson's wonderful Girl of Fire and Thorns.Where I differ from the many professional reviewers is that I wouldn't give it 5-Stars. The first problem that vexed me was the lack of personal descriptions. Clothing and settings were aptly dealt with, however the appearances of the human and dragon characters never jelled for me. I realize that this can be a technique --allowing the reader to fill in the gaps -- but for some reason the lack of description in this book kept me from connecting to the characters as much as I might have wanted. The second problem I had was that the ending did not live up to the overall promise of the book. And at the 'grand moment' of resolution, I found myself oddly disinterested.
Over all, a solid debut novel. Seraphina is a book that fantasy lovers should definitely check out.
2 comments :
You forgot the starred review from Kirkus.
Definitely a 5-star book for me!
The writing was really good, wasn't it : ]
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