Ann Beej > Recent Status Updates

Omg I hate this book

Thank fucking god. I actually laughed out loud when poor Rebecca Soler said she hoped I had enjoyed the production.

Chapter 39: I'm sorry, but if you didn't see every single beat of this book coming, I'm sus

To celebrate being soooo close to being done, I will give Yarros one more compliment: I just finished a legitimately emotionally affecting scene. I won't name names but a dragon dies and then its rider dies of sad thereafter. It really does make you tear up even if you see it coming from a mile away. These dragons deserve better!

Chapter 36: seriously, if this bucket of biceps calls Vibecca "Violence" ONE more time

Chapter 35: "I am AWARE people are DYING but my boyfriend and I are FIGHTING and I don't know if you've noticed but I actually AM the main character"

Chapter 35: I was wrong! There is a lil plot here!

Chapter 34: omg, are we gonna get some plot??? Nope, never mind.

Chapter 32: it's so fun that Enemies-to-Friends Love Interest calls Vibecca a nickname that references her active trauma over killing a classmate so cute adorable

Chapter 31: "it's too hawd to focus on the wawr when my boyfwend doesn't wanna make out wif me"

Chapter 30: ...y'all need to get out more 😒

Chapter 29: "no one told me going to war meant killing people!!"

Chapter 28: "wow, I guess the last six or seven times I had a chance to kill the guy who swore to murder me and my friends, I shoulda done it"

Chapter 27: how do these people keep insisting Vibecca is the smartest person in the room/school/universe? I don't know anyone as dumb as Vibecca and my brother-in-law once asked me which year it was when Alexander the Great conquered Britain. (*I should note for the record that my brother-in-law is a bright, successful businessman, just with some gaping academic knowledge holes.)

Chapter 25: "'Consider your leaders ... demised,'" says Vice Principal Lord High Dragon Commander. Don't threaten me with a good time!

Chapter 24: "is there any chance I WON'T manifest my Magical Dragon Bankai Powers at the last possible second and most opportune possible time? No? Just wondering"

Chapter 22: Anne McCaffrey should sue

To celebrate being over halfway done, I will admit that I appreciate the practical aspects of Vibecca's disability. The symbolism is problematic and the writing is as clumsy as possible, but the physicality of it and how she works around her body's limitations does have a ring of truth and interest. (For instance when she says if she avoided anything difficult she would never leave her bed -- trite, but true.)

Chapter 20: "wave to the passing queer representation while I try to choose between my two strapping embodiments of toxic masculinity"

Chapter 18: I can tell you first hand that even if "clumsy foreshadowing" is a favourite literary device of yours, you will find the amount of it in this book off-putting.

Chapter 18: "I changed my mind. Actually, even after you find your dragon mate, someone else can just kill you and steal them"

Chapter 16: "P-p-professor? Has anyone ever before been this s-special?" 🥺
"No, Rebecca. No one has ever been this special before. You are the most special."

Chapter 15: "not only is my Fated Dragon Mate the most superest specialest magicalest biggest rarest and perfectest of them all, but I am also the only first grader to ever have TWO fated dragon mates! Polyamory is so in right now"

Chapter 14: "how could I, who am so small and tiny and clumsy and short, possibly rescue my fated dragon mate from a pack of boys who are larger and stronger and whose sadism defies all logic?"

Chapter 12: wait, is there a single chapter of this book that ISN'T a data dump?

Chapter 11: WE MUST BE SWIFT AS A COURSING RIVER, WITH ALL THE FORCE OF A GREAT TYPHOON, WITH ALL THE STRENGTH OF A RAGING FIRE, MYSTERIOUS AS HOW THIS BOOK GOT A DEEEEEAAALLLLLL

Chapter 10: "If these highly trained, highly motivated soldiers can't win American Ninja Warrior on their first try, they might as well be dead for all the good they will do our army"

Chapter 9: "he only beats me because he likes me uwu teeheehee"

Chapter 8: "wow, who could possibly become the fated mate of the most powerful and big and magical of all the dragons? It could never be lil ol me," or, "Rebecca Yarros attempts foreshadowing"

Chapter 7: "I hate the guts of Friends to Enemies Love Interest, but I can't stop looking at his perfect sexy face, the sexiest face I've ever seen, and feel irrationally jealous of any woman he talks to"