Book Review: Talon by Julie Kagawa

To be honest, I don’t even know how this book ended up in my pile. I suspect it was an Audible Daily Deal or maybe it was Tiara being generous with her Audible gifts, because otherwise, I don’t go out of my way to pick up YA love triangle books.

Ember and her brother Dante are 16 year old twins–that is, brood mates–sent by Talon to assimilate into human culture. As with all dragons, their human form is beautiful and they have been trained to blend in with other beautiful people. Of course. But the more Ember gets into the joys of beach life with hot boys and surfing, the less she enjoys the restrictions imposed by Talon. And the mysterious rogue dragon that Ember is instantly attracted to certainly doesn’t help dissuade her questioning.

But there’s another problem: St. George–the soldiers who are trained to root out and destroy all dragons. But when Garrett is ordered to infiltrate the beach in order to find the sleeper female, he not only falls for Ember, but discovers that dragons aren’t the cold, calculating monsters he was raised to believe them to be.

Other than the fantastical twist of shapeshifting dragons in human form, this is a fairly typical YA novel with beautiful teens on the beach discovering their passions for rebellion and romance. The issues of misconceptions over dragonkind and the dragonslayers is constantly hammered in thanks to the juxtaposition of both Garrett and Ember’s points of view as the story progresses.

But there wasn’t nearly enough dragon going on. Perhaps that will come in later books, but even when Ember did get to get her dragon on, it felt superficial, with the focus heavily placed on her human self, which seemed to be less of a skin than an second personality. When romance comes into play, there is constant talk of her dragon’s instinctive reaction, but her human side always seemed to dominate. I would have liked to see a lot more conflict.

Overall, an entertaining read, but not necessarily a story I’ll continue with.

5 Comments on “Book Review: Talon by Julie Kagawa”

digitaltempest
June 12, 2015, 10:35 AM

Nope, I absolutely refuse to take any blame for this and you can’t make me. You stop smearing my name. That is libel and slander!

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blodeuedd
June 12, 2015, 4:41 PM

I could see myself being entertained, and not reading more

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Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum
June 12, 2015, 4:51 PM

I’ll actually probably read the next book – but it would be an audiobook loan from the library, this isn’t one I’d run out and buy.

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DJ (@MyLifeMyBooksMyEscape)
June 12, 2015, 7:27 PM

Not particularly a fan of whole YA love triangle thing… but I had been interested in this book because of the shape-shifting dragon. Think I’ll pass on it for now, but I’ll pay attention to see how the rest of series goes.

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- Wendy B
  June 12, 2015, 10:49 PM
  
  There wasn’t nearly enough shape shifting dragon
  
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