Rachel Hartman - Blog Posts

Author Recommendations #1

Genre: Fantasy (No Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, or C.S. Lewis but they are good and should be checked out.) -David Eddings Books: The Belgariad and the Mallorean series. -Tamora Pierce Books: The Immortals and The Song of the Lioness series. -Rachel Hartman Book: Seraphina -Dawn Cook Books: First Truth, Hidden Truth, Forgotten Truth, Lost Truth -Holly Black Books: Tithe, Valiant, White Cat -Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Books: Hawksong, Snakecharm - Martine Leavitt Book: Keturah and Lord Death -Tanith Lee Books: The Claidi Journals -Colleen Houck Books: The Tiger Saga -Peter S. Beagle Book: The Last Unicorn, Two Hearts (story) If you'd like more then let me know.

Book Review 1: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

I (again) apologize, as I've never done an official review or anything. Since that's out of the way I'll do my best to bring forward a decent amount of points on both ends. If I need to improve, please tell me. On to the review!

I'm a huge fan of the YA fantasy genre, if there isn't some fantasy in it then I'm likely to not even pick it up. Safe to say, Seraphina is fantasy through and through. Rachel Hartman brings in refreshing elements to a subject over-done in every form of media/genre: Dragons.

As a short summary, the story follows the young protagonist: Seraphina. She's delved out of her comfort-zone (and guiltily ignoring her father's wishes) and begun working at the palace. Before she moved in, the crown prince is killed and everyone believes it was the dragons that did it. Seraphina finds herself pulled into the mystery with the help of Lucian Kiggs, captain of the guard and nephew of the killed prince. The treaty between the dragons and humans hangs in the balance.

Without spoiling the plot too much, let's just say that the dragons (who we see mostly in compressed human forms) are a wonderful relief. They definitely don't feel human and don't have a perfect peace with the humans. The tension and distrust is felt from cover-to-cover, it's honestly wonderful because it isn't a stagnant world and its future doesn't depend on the protagonist to fix or cause trouble. For a fantasy world, it come off as extremely realistic.The world itself is a mix of medieval European and fantasy setting that pulls you right in. Nothing felt awkward or out of place.

Seraphina, herself, is also a well rounded character. She's not beautiful, socially exceptional, or even well known. She enjoys being in the background and prefers it. Granted, like most YA protagonists, she certainly could benefit from a few more flaws, but she's a model for many of the Mary-Sue cut outs being sold on the shelves. I'm also not one really for first-person in stories, but I actually enjoyed being in her head.

On the opposing end, the plot is a bit overused. Hero/heroine gets involved when country's peace is threatened and heads off to fix it. I personally felt like I had too many characters thrust at me at the beginning, it was hard to keep track of at first. And there were certainly a few scenes that didn't need to be in the novel at all (sadly they're spoilers so I can't mention them), but they only succeeded in making the novel longer rather than pushing the plot along.

As a final comment, I would certainly recommend it. I love it as a whole, which makes it easy to ignore the bad points. I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed for a sequel and will probably read it again.