by AT Qureshi

I am genuinely very confused and was taken back when I saw the negatives ratings and reviews for this book as it’s going to be on the top three books for me of all time. Genuinely. There might be spoilers in this review, I do not have enough energy to hide them unfortunatrly.

And I read about 20 books a month and DNF a LOT. For context, I read most genres but I do genuinely get annoyed with a lot of contemporary romance and YA for my reasons so I understand the opinions some have of this book.

This book begins sad to help us understand the backstories a bit, which seems to be standard for the beginning of a three book series, as we need to know the characters. There isn’t spice in the sense of descriptive open-door romance throughout the book, but there was a lot of tension. The intimacy between Saphira and Aiden was absolutely adorable. I did not get any sense of “we are too immature and won’t admit we like each other” because not only was Saphira hired by Aiden, there is also underlying societal concerns and other elements Saphira has to grapple with. No, the stakes are not high enough to be traumatic, but that’s why I loved this book so much, it’s cozy. It had enough sadness and depth in it though to make me cry like 10 times, smile, and laugh.

ok now time to address some of the negative reviews i saw after reading this book

The review saying this is written by a 12 year old was very weird to me. I heavily disagree. One of the top reasons I DNF YA books is due to immature language and just bad writing, and I did not get a YA vibe from this book.

Does it have a lot of open door spice in it? No. Can dogs breath fire and kill you accidentally? I don’t think so, so no you can’t just replace the dragons with dogs and call it a day. I disagree with that review too. The dragons actually had magic world building in them.

Also the ending of this book was actually so heartwarming, scary, and amazing. At 86% in I was convinced the book was slightly overwritten as I was getting bored, and then Saphira did something that I did not expect.

If you are someone who DOES NOT want any details or the author to hold your hand and you want to make a lot of the connections, you might be annoyed with this book. I personally heavily appreciated and enjoyed the connections as I didn’t want my brain to be in computer programming work mode while I was reading an enjoyable fantasy book. I did not however feel like the author was holding my hand too much.

Those that gave this book a one star for not having enough spice and the romance being immature? Not every romance book needs spice. Pick up an erotica book and you will be much happier with the set expectations. I want a good story. This book delivered so exceptiionally well for me that I will have it on replay in my head until this becomes a movie or tv show.

I’ll probably come back to this review and update it a bit when I have more energy but I loved this book with my heart and heavily recommend it.