Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel AaronMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Jacket Blurb: As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn't fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.
Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ--a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit--Julius has one month to prove that he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test.
He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons...
Read as an audio book.
First, let me begin by admitting I'm not a fan of YA and I picked this as a lark - it was on sale on Audible for $1.00 and had decent reviews. Much to my surprise, I enjoyed this a lot. I thought the narrator was a perfect fit for the voices, he did an excellent job of conveying the different nationalities, and his emotional intonation brought the characters to life. The story was engaging, the plot moved right along, and the characters were interesting.
And now, I'm going to pick it apart, because that's what I do.
As I noted, this is a YA book even though our protagonist is 24 years old. He's a very young dragon, and this is still a coming of age book. Not quite our classic fantasy "quest" book, but not far off either. I'm also going to note the ages of the dragons really bounced all over the place, which I found a bit disconcerting. Julian is the youngest at 24 years old, Katia was over 100, and her mothers were thousands of years old. That kinda messed with the mind a bit.
I did find the internal monologues during the action/fight scenes to be overly long and drawn out. The character is in a fight this isn't the time to reminisce and contemplate.
It was established early in the story the Lady of the Lakes doesn't like dragons, and the Detroit Free Zone (DFZ) is a very dangerous place for dragons to be. If anyone knew if Julius was a dragon, he could be hunted for the substantial bounty Algonquin offered. Yet...there are dragons doing business just fine in the DFZ. An inconsistency that niggled at me.
Julius gets in trouble for leaving witnesses in an alley, yet his sister Chelsey leaves bodies to wash-up on the shore of DFZ and that's not a problem? That's not drawing attention to oneself?
Dragons are supposedly highly secretive, hiding their true form from anyone and everyone, especially in the DFZ. Justin, Julius's brother, had not regard for keeping his mouth shut about their heritage around a human - yet that was something drilled into Julius and a transgression for which he could be killed. Another inconsistency.
I could go on with the inconsistencies. There were...many. Oh so very many. But as I noted above, I liked this book more than I expected. It doesn't end on a cliffhanger, most plot threads were wrapped up (note: I said most plot threads) and there is definitely a teaser to take the reader to the next book. Which I will read.
Definitely recommended.
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