Review for Dragon's Milk

The Dragon Chronicles: Dragon’s Milk by Susan Fletcher

Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks ®

Summery:

[From Back Cover]

 

“You must go to the dragon. You must leave tonight.”

Before she even hears the words, Kaeldra already knows what she must do. She must search out the mother dragon whose draclings have just hatched and somehow get some of her precious milk. It’s the only way to save her foster-sister’s life. Kaeldra would rather not go. It’s much too terrifying, much too dangerous. But Kaeldra also knows that she’s the only one who can do it. For she is the only one who can actually communicate with dragons.

But little does Kaeldra know what she’s getting into. She’s about to begin a journey that will entwine her fate with that of three little draclings and one would-be dragonslayer. A journey that will become a struggle for life.

 

Introduction:

I’m the kind of person who has always been fascinated by dragons, huge, fire-breathing lizards that just scream power. There’s a part of me that wish they were real, and then there’s the sensible part of me that tells me that’s a bad idea. I don’t want to get crispy fried by one. But stories filled with dragons have always been my favorites. If there’s a dragon mentioned in the description, or pictured on the cover, it immediately catches my eye and causes me to pick the book up. I didn’t pick this book because of the cover that’s on the copy I own though. I was on the website called DeviantArt, and I was looking through an artist’s work, when I came upon one with a girl and three little dragons. The artwork was beautiful and so detailed. When I read the description, the artist said they had painted this for the cover of a book called Dragon’s Milk. I thought it was an odd name, mainly because dragons are lizards and lizards don’t give milk. So, because of the title, I searched for the book. I didn’t find it for a while. Granted, I didn’t look too hard for it. It was a mild curiosity that had me looking for it at all. But then one day, my library was having a book sale, and I came across the book. It didn’t have the beautiful cover art that first got me interested in it, but the cover is still nice. I got the book, sat it on my shelf at home, and then forgot about it for a year or two. The only reason I picked it up now was because I had challenged myself to read a certain number of books this year, and since the year is almost over, I picked out a short one so I could meet my goal. (I finished with one day to spare. Yay!)

Characters:

So, the main character is a girl named Kaeldra. I don’t remember if the book mentioned her exact age, but she seems to be in her late teens. She is an oddball where she lives. Everyone around her is shorter than her, and they have brown eyes and straight, black hair. Kaeldra, however, is taller than all of them, has wavy, blonde hair, and mysterious green eyes. She lives with her step-family, Granmyr, Ryfenn, Mirym, and Lyf. Ryfenn, the mother of Mirym and Lyf, doesn’t really like Kaeldra, and calls her a farin. I was never able to determine what the characters meant by farin. There was no explanation, so my only guess was fair or fairy, since the words sound similar. There are no fairies in this book, so I still don’t quite know the meaning. Granmyr, which means Grandmother, is the one who brought Kaeldra into the family after her mother died. Mirym and Lyf love Kaeldra as a big sister. So, Kaeldra has a pretty loving family besides Ryfenn.

Granmyr also has a type of magic where she can see things when she works at her clay wheel. It’s pretty interesting, the clay works into different shapes that show Granmyr many things she wouldn’t know otherwise. Granmyr is also the one who knows the meaning of the storm and earthquake that suddenly came upon them at the beginning of the book. She knew it meant that there was a dragon hatching. She’s also the one who sends Kaeldra out on her journey.

There’s also a young dragonslayer who comes up after Kaeldra finds the dragons. His name is Jeorg Sigrad, and he’s similar in appearance to Kaeldra. He’s tall, his hair is slightly darker than hers, and he has blue eyes. He’s there to slay the dragon, and when Kaeldra leaves with the draclings, he gives chase, and they always have to be one step ahead of him. I enjoyed his character in the moments he was there, and wish that the author had included him more than she did. I only got glimpses of him until the very end of the book.

My Thoughts:

I don’t really know if I enjoyed this book or not. There’s such a mixed up jumble of good and bad in it. The story is interesting, but it starts out fast, and by fast, I mean hardly any buildup. Kaeldra’s youngest sister, Lyf, gets sick out of the blue, and I have no idea how she contracted the disease. It wasn’t until later that the author mentioned that the year before someone else had gotten the sickness and died from it. Going by the description on the back of the book, I thought that Kaeldra would have to go on a journey to find the mother dragon to get the milk which is the only cure for Lyf’s disease (How convenient a dragon shows up just before the girl gets sick). Kaeldra finds the dragon almost immediately, and gets the milk, but has to return again to watch the three draclings so the mother can hunt. After the little sister is getting better, Jeorg Sigrad shows up, saying he’s been sent to kill the dragon. Kaeldra doesn’t tell him anything about the draclings and their mother however. Eventually, Kaeldra has to leave with the draclings to keep them safe. There’s a place where she can get them where they will be protected from people who want to kill them.

The writing in this book is juvenile, that is because it’s a book for younger readers, but even so, there are many sentence fragments, and confusing narration. The author kept throwing new things in the story that were never foreshadowed. Like the reason the bad guy wanted to kill the dragons. Apparently, there was a war brewing against some country that wasn’t mentioned before. Seriously, something that major to the plot and you’re not going to mention it until the last chapter when everything is unraveling and the dragons and people are fighting for their lives? And also, there was a romance thrown in there at the end as well. I thought, “Hey! Where’d that come from? There was no build up and these two characters have barely talked to each other!” I did see it coming from the moment this character was introduced, but still, there was no buildup or hardly any interaction between the characters. At the beginning of each chapter, the author included quotes from “The Bok of Dragons” which is a book about the slaying of dragons, and also letters and wise sayings from the world in this story. That would have been neat normally, except each quote told what was going to happen in each chapter. Seriously, I’m not kidding. I’d read one of them and know that something was going to happen to this character, a traitor was going to be revealed in this chapter, some character is going to die this way, or this person shouldn’t be trusted because he wants to do something similar to what the quote is talking about. So basically, the book was giving spoilers away. I didn’t like that aspect at all, and I do believe the author should have left those out. They didn’t add much to the story, and only summarized each chapter.

The baby dragons were cute to begin with, but as they got older, they only got annoying, disobeying Kaeldra at every turn, and causing unnecessary problems for her. I also couldn’t quite understand how big these draclings were supposed to be. The author mentioned they were as big as wolves, and yet, they could all fit in Kaeldra’s lap. Either wolves in this world are the size of foxes, or Kaeldra is a lot taller than I originally thought. It just seemed like they were as big as what was convenient at the time. Also, the way the book described their flying was so odd. The baby dragons inflate and float like balloons! Kaeldra would even have to tie them to the ground to keep them from floating away in their sleep. To come down, they have to release a burst of flame to descend. It’s almost like a hot air balloon in reverse! The image of puffed up baby dragons floating around was hilarious and seemed like something out of a silly cartoon instead of a fantasy book.

The ideas were interesting and the journey Kaeldra and the draclings had to go on kept me reading. The characters were likable, and the draclings were even enjoyable when they weren’t being disobedient. But there was just so many weird things, like plot points thrown in without any explanations before or after, and just too many convenient occurrences for Kaeldra that the journey seemed way too easy. Even so, I think I enjoyed it, even though half of the book annoyed me and didn’t make much sense. This book is the first in a trilogy, but I won’t be checking out the rest of them, not if they’re written like this one.

Warnings:

There isn’t much in this book that could be considered scary, there are some scenes when the dragons are attacked by wolves and then another scene when one is attacked by a dog and the dragons retaliate with fire. The book was written for children, and is a decent read. There are a few mentions of “the gods” being angry at the people, so it isn’t a Christian book, and some parents of young children may not feel comfortable with multiple deities. It’s actually just a brief mention, and then never brought up again, so I didn’t see much of a point in it in the first place.

My Age Rating: 8-10 year olds will probably enjoy it, any older than that and I don’t think they’ll care for it too much.

~Cya! And I hope all of you have a very Happy New Year. :-)

Review of Precisely Terminated

The Cantral Chronicles: Precisely Terminated
By Amanda L. Davis

Publisher: Living Ink Books®
Summery:
[From back Cover]

With Microchips implanted in their skulls at birth, the slaves of Cantral and Cillineese have labored under the tyrannical rule of the nobles and their computers for centuries. Monica, a noble who avoided the implanting and escaped a death sentence at the age of four, is now sixteen and is in hiding. She lives with the slaves inside the walls of the Cantral palace, pretending to be one of them while the slave council plots a way to use her chip-less state to destroy the all-powerful computers that strike down any hint of rebellion.

The fate of millions rides on Monica’s shoulders. As the only chip-less person in the world, she must find a way to destroy the computers and free Cillineese from the nobles’ iron fist before they strike with the ultimate punishment—death for everyone inside the city walls.

Introduction:

Amanda L. Davis is the daughter of Bryan Davis, the author of Dragons in Our Midst, and Echoes from the Edge. I reviewed the first book in the Echoes from the Edge series earlier on this blog. Bryan Davis is one of my favorite authors, and I do keep up with the books he is working on, though there are so many, I haven’t been able to buy them all or read them all yet! I heard through Facebook that his daughter, Amanda, had also published a book, and I wondered what it would be like. Would it be filled with dragons like her father’s books? Would it be a fantasy world? So, I looked up the book, and saw the title, Precisely Terminated. How cool is that title, by the way? I also heard it was a dystopian. They’re very popular right now, but the only one I’ve read, besides Amanda Davis’ book, is The Hunger Games. So, it’s not a genre I know too much about. I’m more of a fantasy/adventure reader. This is also the first dystopian by a Christian author that I have heard about. There may be more, but so far I haven’t come across any.

The way Amanda L. Davis came up with the idea of this story is quite interesting. I’ve heard her story from the videos she posted from the book tour she and her father went on. She said that she actually dreamt the whole first chapter, names for the characters, and title of the book one night. That is quite amazing. It’s like the story was given to her!

Precisely Terminated is the first book in a trilogy. The second book is called Noble Imposter, and the third is Viral Execution, but is still in the editing stage.

Characters:

The main character in Precisely Terminated is a sixteen-year-old named Monica. She was born a noble, but at the age of four, was taken away and hidden as a wall slave in Cantral. The town where she was originally from, Cillineese, was gassed, and everyone, including her birth parents, were killed. Hidden in Cillineese, however, is the secret to shutting down the computers and ultimately, the chips implanted in everyone there. These chips control them, and if anyone steps out of line, they are terminated by electrical shock! Only Monica is without a chip, and since she is invisible to the all-powerful computers, she is able to go places that no one else can. So, she is instrumental in the plan to free the slaves and end the tyranny. Monica has spent her life as a wall slave, and they live within the walls of the palace, doing work like cleaning up after the nobles, repair work, laundry, or working the furnaces. They are considered so low in rank that they are not to be seen by the nobles. That is why there are passages hidden in the walls for the wall slaves to navigate the palace. They are treated like vermin, and the nobles and computers have no qualms about terminating them. One minor slip up could spell their doom.

There are several minor characters, because in Monica’s journey to find the computers, she is helped or hindered by many different people. One is Simon, the old, grumpy librarian Monica eventually meets. He’s also invaluable to locating the computers. He is a Seen, which is a slave that is allowed to work in the house, and be seen by the nobles. It’s a bit better than a wall slave, but the same rules apply. If you make a mistake, or are caught trying to help a rebellion, you are terminated.

My Thoughts:

This book was quite exciting from the get-go. The first chapter did an excellent job setting up just how dangerous these computers can be, and what the risks of trying to stop the tyranny are. It’s not only the slaves that have to worry about termination though. The nobles may get more freedom than most, but even they have fear. Everything came to a head at the end of this book. It was so exciting and action packed, and everything depended on Monica succeeding, even though for a while it looked like she wouldn’t. When books start getting really exciting, I sometimes have a problem reading them too fast, just because I want to hurry up and find out how the characters are going to make it out of their certain circumstances. It happened with me for this book. I had to keep stopping and going back over what I had just read, and force myself to slow down. I kept telling myself, “Stop! Read this, or you’re not going to understand what happens.” Not many books can build up the adrenaline so well that I have this type of problem reading them, but I just couldn’t read this as fast as I wanted to!

There’s also something very unique about this book. It doesn't include something that is usually the main focus in Young Adult fiction. There is no romance! Yes, seriously, Monica doesn’t meet a romantic interest. Usually, books written for this age group always have a love story, and I’ll admit, I do enjoy a sprinkle of it in books. I don’t usually enjoy it as the main focus though (Sorry romance lovers.). But it really makes sense that Monica doesn’t fall in love in this book. She doesn’t have the time for it! I thought it was unnecessary in The Hunger Games, I mean, they’re fighting for their lives, why get involved with anyone when either of them could be killed at any moment? It’s a breath of fresh air to see a book not include romance. Now, that’s not to say that Amanda L. Davis won’t add it in any of her other books, but if the situation changes during the second one, Monica may have the time for romance. We’ll see.

Unfortunately, Monica did get annoying at times. She would complain about the slave council controlling her and always telling her what to do and risking her life over and over. Living in constant fear of getting caught will probably cause one to hate their lot in life, but she’s the only one who can help free the slaves. No one else can do it because they all have the computer chips implanted in them. Think of all the good you can do, Monica! She just seemed like she had a spoiled attitude and wanted things done her way. This seemed a bit weird to me considering she’s a slave. She should be used to not getting her way, I would think. It didn’t get too bad though, and I do believe she learned some very valuable lessons throughout the book, so she will probably have a better understanding of her position in the next one.

The book is very well written, which is what I’d expect from someone whose teacher was Bryan Davis. Amanda L. Davis was homeschooled, so her parents taught her. She also states on her acknowledgements page that she had a difficult time learning to read, she thanked her parents for never giving up on her. Really, you can’t tell someone who had difficulty learning to read wrote this book. She overcame that obstacle and writes very well. I have a lot of respect for her, her father, and the rest of her family as well. They seem like good people.

I’m still looking forward to getting the next book, and I’m anticipating the release of the last one.

The second book: Noble Imposter

My Age Rating: 12 and up. There are a lot of character deaths. So, the readers need to be able to handle that. There are some instances of violence, and Monica gets some nasty injuries. Also, the tone of the book is kind of dark, since the story is set in a dystopian world. There is some hope in the end, though, so it’s not all gloom and doom.

~Cya!

Review for The Hobbit

The Hobbit By J. R. R. Tolkien

Published by: Ballantine Books®

Summery:

[From back cover]

Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who wanted to be left alone in quiet comfort. But the wizard Gandalf came along with a band of homeless dwarves. Soon Bilbo was drawn into their quest, facing evil orcs, savage wolves, giant spiders, and worse, unknown dangers. Finally, it was Bilbo—alone and unaided—who had to confront the great dragon Smaug, the terror of an entire countryside….

This stirring adventure fantasy begins the tale of the hobbits that was continued by J. R. R. Tolkien in his bestselling epic The Lord of the Rings.

Introduction:

If you have read my previous reviews, you’ve probably seen me mention The Lord of the Rings and J. R. R. Tolkien before. In my opinion, Tolkien is the greatest author of all time, and The Lord of the Rings, is the greatest story of all time. I first found out about Middle-Earth with the release of Peter Jackson’s film versions. They caused me to read the trilogy and The Hobbit as well. I even tried reading The Silmarillion twice, but never got any further than the halfway point both times (I do believe I need to try reading it again). I was eleven when I read The Hobbit for the first time. I remember enjoying every minute of it, but for some unknown reason, I never read it more than once. I don’t know why, since I read The Lord of the Rings so much that the spines of the books are now quite worn. Perhaps I should blame it on Legolas, my preteen self was in love with him. However, just because I only read it once, that didn’t stop me from wanting a film adaptation of The Hobbit. But as the years passed, I started to believe that the only film version I would ever see was the old cartoon. I would actually recommend the cartoon versions of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Return of the King to anybody who enjoys the stories. They’re…interesting to watch. Anyway, after ten years, The Hobbit has come to the big screen! In anticipation to see it, I picked up my old, dusty copy and started reading it again. My plan was to have it read before I went to see the movie, but alas, college finals got in the way and I was forced to leave Bilbo and the dwarves on the side of the Lonely Mountain, looking in through the hidden door. That didn’t stop me from going to see the movie on that Friday, and I did finish the book afterwards.

Reading through The Hobbit again was like returning to a childhood home. It was so full of nostalgia, and even new discoveries that I didn’t remember after all these years. On front cover of my copy of The Hobbit this is written: “The enchanting prelude to The Lord of the Rings,” and that’s the only word I can think of to describe it. Enchanting. You might say awesome, or amazing, but enchanting just fits this book so much better. The way Tolkien wrote it, the narration comes across as having an ageless voice, and it seems like an ancient story, but it also fits perfectly in this modern age. The tone is different from LotR, it’s more lighthearted, but it doesn’t make light of the dark and sad moments. I guess you could say that I think this book is perfection. It’s so easy to believe in these characters and their cause, almost like this really happened. It’s just a beautiful book. I can’t say it any better than many people have already said it. I really want to share this book with others. I think it’s something that everyone should read, young or old.

Characters:

Many people are probably familiar with the characters, but just in case someone who reads this isn’t, I’ll talk a bit about them. Firstly, there’s Bilbo Baggins, who many will remember from LotR as Frodo’s uncle. He is a peaceful, and a well-respected hobbit in the Shire. He never does anything unexpected or has any adventures. All that changes for the poor hobbit, however, when Gandalf the Grey shows up. He’s the wizard who gives Bilbo a little nudge out of the door, and starts him on his way. Gandalf is also there throughout the story, coming and going as he pleases, after all, he is a wizard, he does what he wants. The leader of the dwarves is Thorin Oakenshield. He is decendent of the King Under the Mountain, and vows he will reclaim the dwarves’ home, and take back their treasure from the evil dragon Smaug, who has been guarding it in the Lonely Mountain for many years.

Other characters to note are the other twelve dwarves in Thorin’s company. Let’s see if I can name them all without looking it up. First, there’s Balin, then Dwalin, then Fili and Kili, Bifur, Bofur, Oin, Gloin, Dori, Nori, Ori, and then Bombur. Hey, I did it! Not all of these dwarves have the spotlight put on them. Of course, Thorin gets many lines, Balin gets a number of lines in the book too, Dori gets a few as well, then the rest may get a line or two. It’s a shame that there wasn’t chance to get to know the rest of the dwarves, but then again, thirteen dwarves is quite a lot to deal with.

The evil characters include goblins, led by the Great Goblin, wargs, and icky giant spiders! If I ever saw giant, man-eating spiders in real life, I would probably die of fright. The small ones are bad enough. But of course, the main villain, always looming in the back of the characters minds, is Smaug the Terrible! Their quest will eventually lead them to have to face him, and somehow regain their home and treasure from him. Smaug is a monster of a dragon: greedy, selfish, vain, and extremely dangerous. It will take a lot to get rid of him.

My Thoughts on the Movie:

I guess from the introduction one can tell I really enjoyed this book and have a very high opinion of it. I don’t know what else to add about it. So, perhaps I will speak a little of the movie adaptation that so recently came out. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, is the first of three movies based on The Hobbit. Many people are worried about the book being split into three parts, since Peter Jackson is adding a lot of info and extras to the story. Most of it is coming straight from Tolkien’s notes on the story however. If you open a copy of The Return of the King, you will find near the end the appendices, and this is where a lot of this extra material has come from. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit before he started on The Lord of the Rings, so, at first it was a story meant to stand alone. When he wrote more of Middle-Earth later on, he wrote more connecting his beloved children’s book to the trilogy and lore of Middle-Earth. Peter Jackson is just adding that extra stuff to the story, I believe in a way similar to what Tolkien would have done if he rewrote The Hobbit. Of course, Jackson has added a few things of his own invention. If you haven’t seen the movie, I don’t want to spoil anything for you. Usually, small changes wouldn’t annoy me. It’s a movie, not the book, so it can’t be completely like the book in every aspect. Major changes irk me, however. For example, for those who have watched the LotR trilogy, Jackson changed Faramir’s part in the movie slightly from the book. I never liked the change he made, and wished he had left it the way it was in the story. It showed a difference between Boromir and Faramir, and that’s what I really liked. In The Hobbit, Jackson makes another change, concerning an orc named Azog, and makes it a key plot point. That did annoy me, but it’s the only gripe I have with the movie. It was amazing in all other respects. Sure, there were differences from the book, but there are also so many things that they followed faithfully. Like my absolute favorite quote from Gandalf when Bilbo wishes him a good morning, ‘”What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”’ I really want to use this quote sometime. :)

I think it’s a well thought out movie, full of excitement, humor, and wonderful characterization. Bilbo is amazing. I’ll echo what I’ve heard many reviewers say about Martin Freeman; he is a perfect Bilbo Baggins. There could not have been better casting there. Richard Armitage as Thorin is also amazing and perfect casting. From the previews I wasn’t too sure about him, I guess it was because he didn’t look like Tolkien described him in the books, but I was so glad to see that this Thorin is great. I think I prefer the movie version to the book version.

Warnings:

When it comes to warnings, my opinion differs between the book and movie. In the book, there are some scary scenes where Bilbo and the dwarves get into trouble. (The spiders in Mirkwood are totally icky. If I were little, they might have scared me.) The difference with the movie is that all these scary scenes are portrayed in full, vivid glory, which might make it scarier for the really young. When it comes to the movie, I would judge it by the rating it was given: PG-13. Though, some children younger than that might be able to handle it. I watched The Lord of the Rings when I was eleven, and absolutely enjoyed it and wasn’t scared one little bit. The book can probably be read by younger audiences, since it’s only as graphic as they imagine it. Tolkien didn’t write the book in gruesome detail during any of the fight scenes. In fact, Bilbo is unconscious or doesn’t experience them, so most of the fighting is told in retrospect.

My Age Rating (for book): 9 to 109 (It’s not just a children’s book, anyone can enjoy this.)

~Cya!