Shatter the Sky

Shatter the Sky
Rebecca Kim Wells, 2019

Premise: Maren always planned to travel the world with Kaia once they came of age, even though she would have been happy just living in their small village forever. But when Kaia is taken away, Maren will risk everything to go after her. 

So... this isn't a bad book. I found the style compulsively readable. 

It's just really, REALLY not for me. Or anyone looking for complex stories or characters. It's YA to the point of pain, for my taste. 

Yes there's a twist at the end, sort of, but it's not really unexpected at all, and everything up until then is not even YA-caliber plot, it's middle-grade. The outside world the village elders teach Maren is evil? To my honest surprise, it's... evil, except for her super-special new friend. Huh.

Everything is what it says on the tin. Characters who seem trustworthy are trustworthy. Characters who seem evil are evil. Hurting dragons is wrong, man! Because... it seems like it should be! Maren has super special dragon powers because she comes from the dragon village! Her lost girlfriend is (at least through the end) mostly worthy of her undying, kind of unhealthily obsessive devotion (even though Maren's also into this cute lost prince character, but I had this book recommended off the strength of another polyamorous-friendly YA, so we know where that's going.)

Despite all that, it was still mostly enjoyable to read, which really tells you something about the level of prose skills on display here. The bombastic save-everything-with-one-last-minute-deus-ex-power ending even worked surprisingly well, although I don't know that I care enough about the next part to read the sequel. I hope this author eventually writes something with a more interesting plot and world. 

2 Stars - An Okay Book