Talon - by Julie Kagawa

My rating: 

Long ago, dragons were hunted to near extinction by the Order of St. George, a legendary society of dragon slayers. Hiding in human form and growing their numbers in secret, the dragons of Talon have become strong and cunning, and they're positioned to take over the world with humans none the wiser.
Ember and Dante Hill are the only sister and brother known to dragonkind. Trained to infiltrate society, Ember wants to live the teen experience and enjoy a summer of freedom before taking her destined place in Talon. But destiny is a matter of perspective, and a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught. As Ember struggles to accept her future, she and her brother are hunted by the Order of St. George. (Goodreads)

 The premise of this book is really interesting. Dragons can take human form and are using this skill to infiltrate human society. Unfortunately the plot is only mildly interesting and this book somehow managed to make dragons boring. It seems impossible, but I swear it's true.

The main character, Ember Hill is a stereotypical teenage girl. This is ironic because she's actually a dragon who is constantly complaining that she doesn't understand humans. Ember is rebellious and doesn't want to go to the training organized by Talon, the international dragon organization. Instead she would rather spend her summer hanging out at the beach with her friends. This book also starts setting up some romance which quickly evolves into a full blown love triangle.

Don't get me wrong, this book wasn't terrible. It also helped that I listened to the audio mostly while driving or doing dishes, so I didn't feel like I was missing out on an opportunity to read something better. There are some interesting plot points but overall the characters are pretty uninteresting and personally I'm not a fan of the love triangle cliche.

The Glass Arrow - by Kristen Simmons

My rating:

The Handmaid’s Tale meets Blood Red Road in Glass Arrow, the story of Aya, who lives with a small group of women on the run from the men who hunt them, men who want to auction off breeding rights to the highest bidder.
In a world where females are scarce and are hunted, then bought and sold at market for their breeding rights, 15-year old Aya has learned how to hide. With a ragtag bunch of other women and girls, she has successfully avoided capture and eked out a nomadic but free existence in the mountains. But when Aya’s luck runs out and she’s caught by a group of businessmen on a hunting expedition, fighting to survive takes on a whole new meaning. (Goodreads)

I found The Glass Arrow when I was looking for standalone YA novels. I have nothing against series, but I've read so many lately and I'm getting really impatient waiting for sequels. A world where women are sold as property seemed like an interesting premise, and I think Simmons pulls it off fairly well. We don't get a lot of background on how this situation came about, but that didn't bother me too much. The worldbuilding is solid enough to paint a good picture of the current state of things, and this is accepted as the status quo. I think the lack of background is also less important than in many YA post-apocalyptic novels because of one key difference - there's no hero trying to change the world. Without any kind of revolution, it's easy to accept the situation that the protagonist, Aya, has been put as something that just happens in this world. This isn't to say that Aya isn't a great, strong character; she definitely is. In this novel, though, Aya isn't using her situation to spark a rebellion, she just wants to escape so her life can go back to normal.

Another, very welcome, change from most YA books these days - no ridiculous love story / triangle!!! Yes, there is some romance, but it's introduced slowly and naturally. I'll admit the end result was somewhat predictable, but considering Aya's love interest, Kiran, is pretty much the only guy she interacts with who isn't physically beating her into submission or trying to buy her as property, there's not room for much suspense about who Aya will end up with.

As far as the characters themselves, I thought they were pretty solid. Aya and Kiran are the only one's we really get to know well, but they're good protagonists. Aya is strong, smart, brave, and extremely stubborn. Even though she does come off as superior to many of the other girls waiting to be bought, we at least have the excuse that she's from the outlying mountains. Aya is strong and smart because that's the only way to survive, not because she's just special. Most of the other girls have grown up in the city, expecting to be sold someday and they're more or less resigned to their fate. Kiran is also from the mountains so his survival instincts pair well with Aya's personality. I also think Simmons did a great job of writing Kiran, who can't talk. He starts visiting Aya after she's been captured, and even with no dialogue on his side, we get a good idea of who he is.

After all the great things I've said about this book, I feel like I have to justify why I gave it three stars. First of all, I would have liked some more information about the secondary characters. We don't really get to know any of them or get any back story so they ended up feeling like placeholders to facilitate or hinder Aya and Kiran's plans. On top of that, something about the writing style and pacing of the story didn't grab me like some books do. It wasn't so bad that I lost interest, but I wasn't desperate to keep reading either.  The Glass Arrow is certainly still a good novel, and I would certainly recommend it  for anyone who likes the post-Apocalyptic YA genre.

Crimson Bound - by Rosamund Hodge

My rating: 

When Rachelle was fifteen she was good—apprenticed to her aunt and in training to protect her village from dark magic. But she was also reckless— straying from the forest path in search of a way to free her world from the threat of eternal darkness. After an illicit meeting goes dreadfully wrong, Rachelle is forced to make a terrible choice that binds her to the very evil she had hoped to defeat.
Three years later, Rachelle has given her life to serving the realm, fighting deadly creatures in an effort to atone. When the king orders her to guard his son Armand—the man she hates most—Rachelle forces Armand to help her find the legendary sword that might save their world. As the two become unexpected allies, they uncover far-reaching conspiracies, hidden magic, and a love that may be their undoing. In a palace built on unbelievable wealth and dangerous secrets, can Rachelle discover the truth and stop the fall of endless night?
Inspired by the classic fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood, Crimson Bound is an exhilarating tale of darkness, love, and redemption. (Goodreads)

I gave this book a chance because I read Hodge's other novel, Cruel Beauty, and thought it was pretty enjoyable. Crimson Bound has a ton of similarities to Cruel Beauty, to the point that it feels like the same overarching plot. The synopsis made the story seem promising, and I normally love a fairy tale retelling, but this book just fell flat.

Not even talking about the characters yet, the plot and the world as a whole were extremely under-developed. The introduction to the world started to build what seemed like an interesting mythology of sorts. The forestborn mark humans who are then forced to kill or die. Rachelle becomes a bloodbound this way and knows that, like all bloodbound, she is destined to eventually change into a forestborn herself. She's determined, though, that this won't stop her trying to defeat the Devourer - a dark creature determined to plunge the world into everlasting night. Unfortunately, this great set up leads to the middle of the novel where not much happens. The world, either of the humans or of the forestborn, is never explained any better. Worst of all, in my opinion, is that the end of the book turns into a ridiculously obvious Christian metaphor. I promise I'm not just biased or reading too much into this. For proof there's this quote about the name of one the mythical swords:

“Endurance. It is the sword that hopes all things, bears all things, believes all things, endures all things.”

At this point, the book literally transitioned from a YA fantasy novel to a bible quote... I don't know about you, but I don't read YA fantasy for its religious merits. I'll admit there were a few plot twists that caught me off guard, these were primarily characters revealed to be someone other than they seemed. Hodge never does anything with this information, though. There's the reveal, and then everyone goes back to their usual business.

Which brings me to the characters...They are pretty mediocre overall. The protagonist, Rachelle, spends the whole book feeling unworthy and her self-esteem never improves. The lack of character growth is pretty much a theme across the board. Our two main male characters are, more or less, opposites who only exist to create a predictable, and unrealistic, love triangle with Rachelle. On one side we have Erec d'Anjou, the typical pretty boy who spends the whole book showing off and also happens to be the ruthless captain of the bloodbound. On the other side, there's Armand, the boy who lost his hands to avoid killing and is literally worshipped as a saint by the general populace. Rachelle's interest in both characters alternates between hate and undeniable love / lust multiple times throughout the novel.

Crimson Bound certainly wasn't so terrible as to be unreadable, and if you just want something to take up time it can actually be enjoyable. In comparison with Cruel Beauty, though, this was a definite disappointment.