thistlechaser | Book #12 of 2023: Hand and Talon + 2 DNF (Reply)

Hand and Talon by Melonie Purcell. This book was such an odd experience. I LOVED the first 85%. I couldn't put it down, I read for so many hours each day. But the last 15% just didn't work at all for me.

Set in a magical fantasy world, by chance a "Caller" (Sorin) happens to save what seems like an orphan girl (Krea) by chance. In this world there are creatures called Kyrni -- beings made up of two sides, one human and the other a supernatural animal (dragon, unicorn, griffon, etc). They can change from human to their other side, but they forget they're human, so each one is bonded to a Caller who will help them turn back to human.

Surprise surprise, turns out Krea is a Kyrni. The two start the long, long journey to the city where Krea can be trained, picking up a little orphan boy (Dane) on the way. Dane turns out to be an untrained mage, but he can get training in the same city they're headed for, so they bring him along.

The first 85% of the story was the three of them traveling through the world and getting to know each other (and the reader getting to know the world). I loved it so much.

About the 85% point, the story completely changed both pace and tone. It felt thrust into fast forward. It went from being a wonderful stroll through this magical land to being a story about a nation being invaded by the bad guys and the battle to stop them going on RIGHT NOW. The change was so fast it felt like a whiplash risk.

In addition to that, at the same 85% point, there were way too many unbelievable coincidences happening (like a random street orphan being able to not just tell Krea how to break into the nation's dungeons, but giving her exact directions to on how to get to where she wanted to go in them). Plus, oddly, the editing got worse. Not awful, but in the first 85% of the book there were only a couple small issues, but the last 15% had quite a number of significant ones.

The second book in this series is out, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get it. There aren't enough reviews around for me to tell if I'd enjoy it or not, and the last 15% of this one left a bad taste in my mouth. The first 85% of the story was wonderful though!

DNF #17 - Hunter (The Dragonrider Heritage Book 1) by Nicole Conway. This was one annoying book, and yet I made it to the 65% mark before DNFing it.

Set in a generic medieval world, dragons exist, but they are just very intelligent animals and can't talk. They bond with one human as their rider, but they can't communicate any more than a horse could.

One dragon lost his rider (and is blinded in the same attack). He's too crazed with anger and fear for anyone else to handle, until a young stable boy finds a way to connect with him.

This could have been such a good book. The parts about taming and bonding with the dragon were great. It's just that the main character was so awful. He's 16 years old (and in a medieval world, that's basically an adult), but he came off as not even 6. I lost count of all the times the author descried him as a "newborn fawn". He trembled like a newborn fawn, fell to the ground like a newborn fawn, was as weak as a newborn fawn... The other description the author liked was "scared baby squirrel". He clung to the other boy like a scared baby squirrel, etc. And the number of times he vomited out of fear... It was really just ridiculous.

In addition to all that, the author was very much not a believer in "show, don't tell". It's really too bad, this could have been a really good book.

DNF #18 - Dinoverse by Mike Fredericks. This one was a case of me just not being the target audience. Set in the current world, a young boy (12-ish years old) invents a machine for a science fair (but really it's just broken computer monitors he put lights into). Somehow this machine actually "works", but not in the way the boy intended: He and some other junior high school students end up in the age of dinosaurs... as dinosaurs.

Too much of the first part of the book was just the kid in school (yawn), but even once they became dinosaurs, the writing was just too young for me. Plus in the Amazon description is the line "Theirs is an amazing, wildly comical, and very human journey". A "wildly comical" book aimed at pre-teens just is really not for me.