What I Liked:
Awareness:
For a young children’s book, this novel has some very ambitious goals about raising awareness—which I think it meets pretty well. For starters, Luna gives the readers thoughts about the inherent wrongness of racism and promotes ideas of equity, all through the lenses of SilkWing oppression and the Pantala dragons meeting the Pyrrhia dragons. Also, the friendship with humans.
Additionally, Luna (and perhaps Cricket) battles with depression (as much as a MC in a children’s novel can), covering symptoms, small methods of treatment, and how subtle and often unrecognized mental disorders are to both friends and family. Another plus to this book, especially since mental health has had a long history of being intentionally unrecognized and ignored—much the same with racism. I think Sutherland is doing an amazing job teaching young readers how to better the world we live in. I have a lot of respect for her because of this.
Identities:
Sutherland has shown that some changing ideals, such as what the sexual orientation norm is, are healthy and good through her supporting cast of gay and trans characters. Another example of how she is pushing for equality and freedom of choice herself. (Although that one mention of the person who used they/them pronouns felt very awkward and on-the-nose).
Luna and Cricket:
While Luna as a MC fell a little flat for me, I loved her interactions with Cricket, a HiveWing dragon whose race enslaved Luna’s SilkWings. Out of all the dragons in her party, Cricket—the least threatening—is the one Luna feels threatened by the most, which makes SO MUCH sense, especially when you look at Luna’s aspirations for a world of equity. From that standpoint, her fear, distrust, and hatred (at times) of HiveWings—Cricket specifically—starkly contrasts her beliefs and goals for unity. And that is GREAT! As humans, we can relate the most to complex characters whose actions and thoughts are changing—and, naturally biased (because we all are, let’s be honest). Luna’s interactions with Cricket push her aspirations for the future into direct conflict with the traumatic past of the SilkWings, creating for contrasting feelings and stereotypes. It makes Luna much more relatable, especially when she and Cricket work past this boundary and become friends.
What I Disliked:
Unfortunately, this book felt like a rather anticlimactic ending for the third series of Tui T. Sutherland’s, especially in comparison to her other two (Sunny’s and Qibli’s books), for various reasons.
The Scorching:
I was honestly excited when we began to learn more about the Scorching. It has been prevalent throughout all three of Sutherland’s series, a piece of background information I didn’t give much thought to until—well, this book. And therein is one of my issues with it. While I loved the mystery of the Scorching and figuring out what happened exactly, from both human and dragon perspectives, I think a few more Easter eggs could have been scattered about the looming history throughout this whole Lost Continent Arc. It would have made the buildup much greater and more impactful; it would feel more world-changing. But that’s rather small compared to my glaring issue of what the Scorching actually was.
Here is your general summary: King Cottonmouth of one of the three human kingdoms hates/fears dragons so he goes to one of their nests and steals all their eggs to try and enslave them. The other two kingdoms, who are all at war btw, learn of this and copy him to try and level out the advantage. Unfortunately, the dragons began to kill all the humans as more eggs were stolen, eventually causing Cottonmouth and some others from his kingdom to flee across the sea from Pyrrhia to Pantala. He took one dragon egg with him—Lizard—and searched for a way to control dragon kind on Pantala. He found a weird plant that could control the minds of anyone who eats/inhales the fumes of it, and goes underground into a gorge the humans call the Abyss to study said plant. He takes Lizard with him. Somehow they die down there, and somehow both dragon and man’s consciousnesses are shared with the plant’s… But everyone forgot they existed, and they lived together for 5,000 years tormenting the Pantala dragons through Queen Wasp… so yeah….
Main issue with the Scorching? It was human caused. Why is that an issue? Because throughout the entire series we’ve thought that humans (or scavengers, as they’re called) are little more than a rare source of food. Not once until this series have we delved into humans in the dragon world. In fact, that idea is one of the main building blocks of this Arc—specifically a world where humans and dragons can live together in peace. To find out that the destruction of the human race was the fault of the humans (or one man, actually), felt rather dull. And sure, the dragons then genocided the human race—which was over dramatic and as wrong as stealing dragon eggs and such—but the book scarcely covers that perspective (probably because dragons thought humans to be stupid and harmless). STILL. I felt that it gave more light to the dragons’ perspective in general. That, for me, made the whole goal of human-dragon friendship feel counterintuitive, rather one-sided, and not beneficial to the dragons at all. It would have felt more equal if both sides’ wrongdoings were highlighted to the same degree. (This being said, Luna does a good job of trying to give each side their equal blame. However, at times her opinion can feel a little skewed, which makes sense given she’s a dragon and not a human…) I don’t know. Do my thoughts here make any sense?
The Ending:
The ending to this series felt rushed and weak, and that is the fault of (I believe) Cottonmouth and Lizard/Freedom (and the plant, too, I guess). In contrast to Queen Wasp, who we had been building up to for five books, these three are the Holy Trinity of Blandness. My strongest issue with them is that they (save the plant) were not introduced or so much as foreshadowed in the previous books, which is an instant red flag. Suddenly there are these new characters from out of the blue that I’m supposed to mark as the perpetrators and masterminds behind all the horror in Pantala? How am I supposed to believe in their evilness if I didn’t even know they existed??
Also, each character from the three were annoying in general. Cottonmouth was your generic, one-dimensional villian who we did very little digging into besides, “ah yes, let’s kill the dragons before they kill us because they are big, evil monsters!! Never mind that we’ve had next to no dragon sightings ever! And certainly, once we find the one(1) dragon nest in our area, stealing ALL the dragon’s eggs and trying to enslave them once they hatch won’t anger their parents!!” And so on and so forth. This person, this supposed king of a country, has no brains whatsoever. You would think he’d have a higher education since he is a king, or a basic common sense—but no, all of those go flying out the window due to a hatred and fear of the dragon race that spawned from nowhere.
Also, he has a brother—Coyote—whom he basically just abandons on Pyrrhia once he discovers he went missing defending the humans from dragons. There were no feelings here; not a lick of concern. I mean, seriously, throw the guy a bone!
So basically, to sum him up, he makes no sense and exists just so that the reader can feel like a villain actually got vanquished compared to the heartthrob that was Lizard/Freedom.
Lizard (or as she is renamed before her death, Freedom), is basically a 5,000 year-old temperamental child of a dragon whom died with Cottonmouth and has since been sharing the same brain-space with him. Almost instantly upon meeting her, I knew that 1) She was going to experience Some Feelings, and 2) she was going to ‘tragically’ die afterwards. There was no way around it; the book had simply written itself into that hole. AND guess what? I was spot on. Essentially, because Cottonmouth raised(?) her, Freedom grew up believing that dragons were monsters, which would be a cool sort of complex to delve into if the character didn’t have the mindset of a child despite being over 5,000 years old, and if she wasn’t set to die. This led to her seeking out the memories of other dragons (which none of them have ever given her in all her 5,000 years alive—something I find rather hard to believe)—in order to confirm the beliefs imposed upon her from Cottonmouth that dragons are monsters. All in all, very interesting. Much more so than Cottonmouth. But what happens next is exactly what you’d expect: Moon uses her mind-reading abilities to get the whole crew to share their memories with Freedom. In a sudden whiplash of feelings, Freedom gives them the key to destroying Cottonmouth and her consciousness (and the plant’s too? I’m still kind of confused about that.) and save everybody.
I had PROBLEMS with this scene. The consciousness of a dragon who hates the very fact that she is a dragon—has been hating herself and dragon kind for 5,000-some years—suddenly flips a switch due to the memories of ten or so dragons. And it happens in the span of five chapters. COME ON! And then Luna, classic hero move, tries to save Freedom’s consciousness but not Cottonmouth’s… but it obviously won’t work because the scene needs to be tragic and moving. Which it was—a little. But not enough for a character I’ve literally just met. And renaming her from Lizard to Freedom was so corny; it felt like a repeat of Darkstalker to Peacemaker (which I guess could have been a potential issue the author realized when writing, and thus another reason Freedom was set to die).
Also, another issue I had was the fact that out of the three (but honestly two since the plant doesn’t count) consciousnesses of the evil beings we only got to see the dragon truly developed as a character—not a one-dimensional villain. Why did this irk me? Because the whole book was supposed to be about human-dragon relationships and friendships. That feels rather counterintuitive if we only focus on Freedom’s reasons for being evil rather than those of Cottonmouth’s. And yes—I understand he began to hate dragons because of the Scorching and how they killed 99% of humankind, and that the Scorching was basically his fault for stealing dragon eggs (and setting an example for the other kingdoms to do the same). But STILL. His character could have been so much better, along with his reasons for causing the Scorching, than what they were. He could have learned some big lesson at the end that left him trusting dragons a little bit more than he used to for his 5,000 years of existence. But nope. He’s denied even that much.
And thirdly, what was going on with the plant? I was kinda confused. It had a consciousness?? I honestly didn’t get it.
Oh—the actual ending of the book was a letdown too. Queen Wasp, the villain we’ve been squaring up to defeat was literally imprisoned. Offscreen. Then, the author tried to consolidate this new world within one final chapter, leaving the rest unsaid with the classic “but there was still a lot to be done.” There wasn’t even a cliffhanging epilogue which Sutherland is so good at; nothing hinting towards the next series (if there will be one?) It feels rather open-ended. The author is at a good enough place to stop but if she wants to continue, she can. Which is fine… it just leaves me feeling way to unfulfilled.
Pacing:
Sutherland has always been good at throwing curveballs at her characters and keeping her readers on their toes. For the first third of this novel, that much was true for me. In a dangerous mission she found a way to remove all the fighters—those who held an advantage over Luna, and who she relied (perhaps too heavily) on. This was the perfect setting for forcing Luna to come out of her shell and grow as a character. Except…
Luna didn’t really do. Anything.
The next 2/3 of the book consisted of Luna slowly learning more about the Scorching and trying to find humans so she could go the Abyss—prophecy stuff. But NOTHING happened. I never once felt any fear for Luna’s situation. Not once. Not even when she went into the Abyss to save Dusky.
And ohhhh boy, the Abyss. The longest thing I’ve ever read which felt so, so pointless. Basically, while Luna’s body was touched and held captive by the mind-controlling plants, her mind was conversing with Lizard and Cottonmouth for. Around. Ten. Agonizing. Chapters. Agonizing because of what I’ve said above.
And also, it turns out that while Luna is with the two villains in the mind-space, she gets to watch all of her friends continue the journey and fight to get away from Wasp and save the world (and her, btw, because she isn’t dead yet). She watched. As a spectator. And was USELESSSSS. It was SO BORING, and a letdown. Couldn’t she have done more??
Neutral view: humans
At the beginning of the series, as humans slowly gained more involvement, I was initially confused (specifically the first time we met Raven). I didn’t realize we were having a scavenger’s POV until much later, which signaled greater human involvement in the series. And honestly? I was worried about this. Since the beginning, it was such an interesting take to see humans as the crazy little animals; as pets and as food. But overall how they developed wasn’t too bad in the book—not as bad as I thought it would end up. I think it will be intriguing to see how certain characters (such as Winter) or those who have eaten scavengers deal with knowing humans are intelligent beings in the future. That being said, having humans defined as humans felt a little self-insertish to me. Don’t hate it, but don’t love it.
I was really hoping for more from this book, if I’m being honest. But that’s okay—I haven’t lost any faith in Sutherland’s ability to tell a gripping story, nor do I actually hate this book. For me, it was just too bland. This being said, I will always be on the lookout for another one of Sutherland’s novels because she is still a great author and I respect her books so much that I, a reader far outside the age the book is zoned for, criticize it as much as any other book. It’s tough love.
Also, let me add that I did not mean for anything here to be a personal attack on the author. I was just expressing my feelings about the book, as I feel I am entitled to my own opinions. However, if anything I said was offensive, please know you have my sincerest apologies.
Lastly, please do not let my review stop you from picking up this book. While it has flaws, it balances those with amazing character building and informative lore. If anything, pick up the book to support the author!