Monday, April 6, 2020

Book Review: Dragonslayer by Tui T. Sutherland (Wings of Fire Legends #2)



I know, I know, I still haven’t gotten to a lot of the Wings of Fire books yet. Believe me, I definitely plan to. Eventually. I’m still catching up on a ton of books I still haven’t read that have been sitting on my shelves for ages yet. However, I will try to individually review each Wings of Fire book as it comes out, at least the new ones. I won’t be doing the graphic novels, by the way.

With that said: Dragonslayer. I’d be lying if I said that I was very excited about getting a human-POV book in this series that’s all about dragons, but, after thinking about it, I did get interested. It’d be interesting to explore Pyrrhia from a scavenger’s point of view. How do they live with dragons ruling the continent? What exactly happened during Queen Oasis’ death? This is an opportunity to answer a lot of questions. So, without further a due, let’s get to Legends #2: Dragonslayer. Spoilers ahead.

Dragonslayer has, like Darkstalker, three protagonists, though this time they’re human. We have Wren, a girl who survived being sacrificed to dragons by the dragonmancers of her village, Ivy, daughter of the legendary killer of Oasis, and Leaf, a wannabe dragonkiller and Wren’s brother. We explore the story of the first Wings of Fire arc from their point of view. It answers a lot of questions we might’ve had regarding the scavengers from those books, but also sets up a whole new conflict with the Lord of the Invincible City, the Dragonslayer, Wren’s friend Sky being kidnapped, and more.
I had an absolute blast reading this one, and finished it within the span of a day. It was everything I hoped it was. It answered questions we had regarding the first arc, but built even further upon it.
The human societies are interesting and all unique. From Valor to the Invincible City to Talisman, they all feel unique and I loved exploring these locations. It’s also great to see some already established places being seen from the eyes of a human.

The characters are great. Tui is just masterful at crafting unique and real-feeling characters that never feel uninteresting. I enjoyed all of our protagonists and Sky the most. Wren was definitely out of the three mains, though. I loved her tough attitude.

There’s of course plenty of twists and turns in this, and I didn’t see coming where it was going pretty much through the entire book, and I love a story that can do that. I’m also glad to see that the ending of this book is yet another cliffhanger and setup for more, so we’ll see how things go after Dragonslayer.

The pacing was just near perfect. I loved the circulating three POV’s and how they each always stopped at the perfect moment before picking up later after the other two. It continuously had me wondering what was going to happen next without feeling either too slow or too fast.

What else can I say? Dragonslayer is yet another masterful installment in Tui’s Wings of Fire library. It definitely deserves to be looked at. I know the human POV might be a turnoff for some, but trust me when I say it’s worth it.

I’m giving Dragonslayer five out of five stars. It’s honestly just that good. Tui, you’ve done it again. 

Rating: 5/5

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