Firebolt by Adrienne Woods Book Review

The excitement in this book is reminiscent of Harry Potter and the romance of Fallen series. If you love those book series, you will like this book.

Title: Firebolt
Author: Adrienne Woods
Series: The Dragonian #1
Publishing Date: September 19th 2014
Publisher: Fire Quill Publishing
Language: English
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Dragons
ISBN13: 9780994653604
Edition: eBook

Dragons. Right. Teenage girls don’t believe in fairy tales, and sixteen-year old Elena Watkins was no different.

Until the night a fairy tale killed her father.
Now Elena’s in a new world, and a new school. The cutest guy around may be an evil dragon, a Prince wants Elena’s heart, and a long dead sorcerer may be waking up to kill her. Oh. And the only way Elena’s going to gr Dragons. Right. Teenage girls don’t believe in fairy tales, and sixteen-year old Elena Watkins was no different.
Until the night a fairy tale killed her father.
Now Elena’s in a new world, and a new school. The cutest guy around may be an evil dragon, a Prince wants Elena’s heart, and a long dead sorcerer may be waking up to kill her. Oh. And the only way Elena’s going to graduate is on the back of a dragon of her own.
Teenage girls don’t believe in fairy tales. Now it’s time for Elena to believe – in herself.

Review

Sixteen-year old Elena Watkins and her father have been constantly on a run from something since forever, as far as she could remember. Never staying at a single place every three months, Elena just lost it. Her father's secrecy is just too much. But a naive young girl like her has no other choice but to follow the old man's orders so she just have to pack and leave.

Elena was not convinced with her father's paranoia until a dragon landed on the roof of their car. Unbelievable things just happened right before her very eyes and they had gotten for the worst that the only way to shield herself from further harm is to enroll herself in Dragonia, the school for dragons and dragon-riders. Not that she has any other choice either because when a human enters the island for dragons, he could never leave it.

In the world of dragons, magical humans live with "dragons". Dragons hatch from eggs and retain their dragon form until they're about five years old when they'll be able to learn to transform themselves with a human form. Dragons are basically shifters like werewolves sans extreme conditions. The only time a dragon couldn't retain a human form is when he's too scared. As it turned out, Elena's father was a dragon so for a single day, her mind was really fucked. Wait, I didn't mean to imply that her father transformed into a dragon because he's really scared but because he has a strong need to protect Elena.

This is a destiny kind of book. Like insta-love, people are subject to imprinting (remember Twilight?). I forgot the right word used and it's hard to look for it in the book. I did write my main thoughts for this review in bullet form though and one of them was "I like fate books," and I don't know what to make of it. Dragons are seldom paired in fate. But when they do, a perfect couple or soul mates would be a dragon and a dragon-rider of opposite sexes. They'll make a formidable partnership.

Some dragon-riders ascend to gain new abilities which happens when they're around seventeen of age. Since dragons come in different colors, with various abilities, oftentimes they need a dragon-rider with certain capabilities to match them up like say, a dragon that breathes fire must be paired with a dragon-rider more likely to be impervious to fire. I don't have any problems with insta-love. In fact, I love the idea of being paired up with someone based on your ascension.

The excitement in the book is reminiscent of Harry Potter, not because of the pure magic per se but because of the structure of the school curriculum, relationships between humans born with dragon-magic and humans without, co-existence of the magical world and non-magical world except that their's marriage in the two worlds since the dragon island also uses technology and improve on it. Furthermore, it is said that breakthroughs in technology were made by dragons in their human form.

I've just finished the manga (Japanese comics) Gakuen Alice (or Alice Academy). For some reason, the feel for that manga rubbed itself on me while reading this book. Normally, I would have been bored with this book's pacing and the stale or forced romance but because of Alice Academy, my approach for this book wasn't dampened.

Speaking of the forced romance, I am reminded of Luce's and Cam's relationship in Lauren Kate's Fallen series. Elena just out of the blue fell in love with the prince of Tith, Lucian. One thing she was just fantasizing on the last Rubicon (a dragon bound to become so evil unless he found his pair), Blake Leaf, the next she was passionately kissing Lucian.

It's so obvious that Elena's going to end up with Blake. Like Lauren Kate's style, a strong romantic pair won't exist unless you make another person a tool for their love. Cameron wasn't really a tool for Lucy in the Fallen series, rather he was using Lucy to exact vengeance but definitely for this book, Lucian was used to become a tool for Elena's soon-to-be whirlwind romance. Elena's role is just so predictable, the author could have done a little bit to be inconspicuous about it.

With all that's happening on a sixteen-year old girl, I could say that the protagonist is one horny girl. Why automatically get in a relationship with someone when it's clear you're desiring somebody else? Isn't it too early to be romantically involved with someone when you're just new in the environment?

The other problem I faced with this book was when Elena's soon-to-be bff was first introduced. There are so many private jokes with Becky, only herself could relate to. The "jokes" are understandable but since we are not yet really familiarized with Becky, her jokes with herself just sound so out of place or so how the author pushed them.

Another problem I saw was this,

Compared to the other dragons, her lips were lush and full, as defined facial bones highlighted her fiery eyes.

I can't think of that about a dog.

The author, Adrienne Woods, stick with misconception and I have no idea if it's intentional,

Vikings carrying huge weapons and hats with long horns on top of their heads were trapped behind glass, frozen in time.

The setting for this book is like the future of the animated film, How to Tame Your Dragon. Back in the old days, dragons where seen as vicious creatures that need to be annihilated. More so, there are specific dragons more prone to evil deeds than other types. It was just a few hundred years when it was discovered that dragons could actually take on a human form and when paired with the right dragon-rider, a dragon's evil nature will be tamed.

I love the challenges faced by Elena in the cave. The riddles were definitely the thing I love most in this book. I got most of the riddles especially Elena's final task. I find it funny really since Elena had a stroke of genius because of the first sentence and yet I got it because of the second sentence. The cave adventure was the book's strong suit.