Reading With Tyler

Name: A Language of Dragons
Series: A Language of Dragons #1
Author: S.F. Williamson
Publisher: Harper Fire
Format: Kindle
Genres: YA, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Academia
Spice Rating: Glimpses and Kisses🌶️

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Review:

This was a ride to go on, for sure. I started A Language of Dragon’s quite excited as both my fiance loved it and Kayleigh from K-Books also loved it! That’s two very loud endorsements towards a book, for me! I went into this expecting a 4 – 5 star read. I expected to love it. Sadly it wasn’t to be, but not because the book wasn’t excellent! Let’s discuss it a bit!

We follow Viv, Vivian, as she finds out a lot about her life is screwy – her parents are arrested, her cousin taken just for being of age, a civil war brewing and somehow she finds herself having the excellent idea of stoking the fire of that civil war and all but essentially starts it!! All in the span of one day and night. She quickly finds herself being offered a deal – help the government win the war she started without thoughts of the consequences and she can save her family… if she doesn’t everyone will die (most importantly to her, her family).

She is not a likeable FMC for a lot of A Language of Dragons. At least for me she wasn’t, there was a part of me that understood her position and why she was so infuriating but ultimately she was infuriating to me as the reader. But her being unlikeable wasn’t what I struggled with. Viv, is recruited as a ‘codebreaker’ because she can understand and speak many Dragon languages as well as a couple human ones. And I thought this had the potential to be as interesting as the magic system in Blood over Bright Haven – though this itself isn’t magic. Sadly this is where I was lost.

I got bored very quickly with the explanation and over explanation of the work Viv and her team were doing. It doesn’t happen often that I am rage reading, but every now and then it happens… And as I was reading these 40 or 50 pages I was just getting more annoyed with how bored I was that I stopped reading and almost quit the book… Thank God I didn’t!

After taking an evening away from the book, I came back with new eyes and a hope that the story would progress. And I was rewarded!! The plot kicked up a notch, and I even got interested in the stuff that was previously happening that was boring me. And since Viv as I said had a team, there was a cast of characters that we were slowly getting to know better!

One of which was Atlas King, now I love him and I was living for his interactions with Viv! I love it when characters are sending each other secret written letters – either flirting, or getting to know each other, and Atlas and Viv’s letters gave me hope! Because I didn’t go into this thinking there was a romance, and whilst it certainly wasn’t the focus for the plot it was a driving force for Viv (and as a result, for me!) to keep going.

The second half of A Language of Dragons was truly brilliant, I couldn’t stop reading because I simply needed to know how everything was going to turn out. In a story with political intrigue, betrayals, secret identies, rebellion causes, dragons, trials and love… A Language of Dragons had everything it needed to have to be a 4 or 5 star read. It really struggled with pacing, and over explanation that lost me. I will however, be picking up book two when that releases! And thank god it releases in January else I’d be upset with having to wait too long!

It would have been a 4 star read, sadly given the rage reading and then the dragging myself back to it I couldn’t. So, I rated it 3.5 stars.

“People shouldn’t fear their prime ministers. Prime ministers should fear their people.”