Review – Dragonslayer (Wings of Fire: Legends, Book 2) by Tui T. Sutherland (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Middle Grade
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 512 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1338214604
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Wings of Fire: Legends series
Source: Bought
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Ivy doesn’t trust the Dragonslayer. He may be her father and the beloved ruler of Valor, but she knows he’s hiding more than the treasure from the sand dragon he killed two decades ago.
Leaf doesn’t trust dragons. They’re the reason his favorite sister, Wren, is dead, and now he’ll do whatever it takes to slay even one.
Wren doesn’t trust anyone. She swore off humans after her village tried to sacrifice her to the dragons. She only has one friend, a small, wonderful mountain dragon named Sky, and they don’t need anyone else.
In a world of dragons, the humans who scramble around underfoot are easy to overlook. But Ivy, Leaf, and Wren will each cross paths with dragons in ways that could shape the destiny of both species. Is a new future possible for all of them . . . one in which humans can look to the skies with hope instead of fear?”
Series Info/Source: This is the second book in the Wings of Fire: Legends series and takes place during the first book of the Wings of Fire series. I bought this book for my son.
Story (3/5): This basically tells the story of three different humans: Ivy, Leaf, and Wren. Their stories are fairly separate until very late in the book where they come together. I feel like this would have been better as three novellas because the stories were so separate for so long. I also struggled to remember all the way back to the first part of the Wings of Fire series; so I kept feeling like I was missing a lot of background context. I think this book would have had more impact on me if I had gone back and read the beginning of the Wings of Fire series again.
Characters (3/5): The characters were fine. I enjoyed Wren and Sky a lot but thought the others were ho-hum. You just jump between the characters so much that you don’t really get to know any of them that well. At times I also had trouble telling the difference between Ivy and Wren because their voices sounded very similar.
Setting (4/5): I enjoyed seeing the Wings of Fire world from the perspective of humans. It was highly entertaining and gave an interesting twist to this world.
Writing Style (3/5): I was a bit disappointed that the humans sounded exactly like the dragons in tone. I guess I expected the humans to sound more human rather than absolutely identical to how the dragons sound in the other books. I also didn’t like how the book was so broken up. You have very long chapters from one character’s perspective and then all the sudden you’re listening to another character’s perspective. It just didn’t work well and this would have been better as three novellas, one for each character.
My Summary (3/5): Overall I thought this was a bit disappointing and just not as good as the other Wings of Fire books. I have been mainly reading these because my son wants me to and I normally find them pretty entertaining. However, neither of us liked this book as much. While it’s interesting to see this world from a human’s POV, this book was just too scattered and broken up to make a cohesive story. I also think you probably want to go back and read the early Wings of Fire books to remember all the background context of what’s going on with the dragons during this story about the humans. This was interesting, but definitely not my favorite.
