BOOK REVIEW: Talon by Julie Kagawa

BOOK REVIEW: Talon by Julie Kagawa

Harlequin Teen
October 2014
Paperback, £5.33
Reviewed by Aly Locatelli

6/10

We were taught their entire blood-filled history, from the dragonslayers, to the fanatical Templar Knights, all the way up to the militaristic order they were now… St. George was ruthless and cunning and unmerciful, the enemy of all of our kind

Ember Hill is a dragon in human form. Fresh out of Talon, a school for her kind that prepares them for the human world, she finds herself in LA with her brother, Dante. They have a whole three months of summer to themselves before the organisation sends them on to their next stage of training.

But things don’t quite work out that way. Before Ember has a chance to enjoy her summer and the human friends she miraculously made — and especially spend time with a certain blond, blue-eyed boy that sends her stomach a-fluttering — her and Dante are thrown into a newer, more brutal training program.

Not only is Ember being forced to push her limits  over and over again, but there is a strange rogue dragon hanging around, a boy who wants to speak to her, who wants to tell her all about Talon… and what they’re really like. As Ember begins to question everything she was taught, more questions spring up: who is the blond boy that saved her on the beach that day? Who is the rogue dragon, and what does he want? And why, after sixteen years of telling each other everything, is her brother pulling away from her?

I’m going to be brutally honest. I went into Talon expecting dragons and life-or-death fights. What I wasn’t expecting was a love triangle so bluntly obvious it made eyes bleed and summery, contemporary romance. I expected fantasy, not woe-is-me-whoever-will-I-choose? It was disappointing because I expected a kick-ass heroine and an engaging, fast paced, exciting plot. Whilst it was definitely fast paced and exciting, the romance between Ember and Garret turned me off, mostly because Garret is so incredibly awkward. A soldier of St George, he claims to never have even heard of arcade or video games or even parties… when his partner is obsessed with both. Garret was a hard character to like, believe and sympathise with. He seemed to try too hard to be angsty and naive, but came off as a fool who lived under a rock his entire life instead. The romance between them was hard to buy. There was definitely a heavy dosage of insta-love going on there.

However, I adored the other characters, especially Riley and Dante. One, a rogue dragon. The other, a brother to a wannabe rogue. They were very real, funny and engaging and I found myself dying to read more about them.

Although the plot was terribly predictable in places, it didn’t matter for the overall story. Kagawa still managed to pen an exciting story of star-crossed lovers, of beasts that can’t be tamed and destinies that cannot be avoided. I look forward to the next instalment in the series and am hopeful for improvements in the execution of the plot and characters.

(Talon is Book 1 in the Talon Trilogy.)

Category: Book Reviews, Other Reviews