Yuffie's Book Reviews

Seraphina - by Rachel Hartman

Seraphina refers to the protagonist, Seraphina, a half-human, half-dragon. She lives in a world where dragons and humans have always warred with each other, but a few decades ago, they signed a treaty for the two species to live in peace. However, both harbor deep grudges for the other, which puts a half-human, half-dragon in an awkward place.

I loved the dragons! Or rather, their human forms. They were emotionless, creepy, and logical. But when they become humans, they get all the emotions and mushy feels that come with humanity, and it makes them highly uncomfortable. They all have to wear a bell on them to show they are saarantrai, or dragons in human form. There are bell-exempt scholars, an exception made so they could pursue knowledge without freaking out the humans they're working with (so they're pretending to be fully human).

It's a really cool concept and some great nuances, and the tension and conflict created by this setup was fantastic.

Seraphina herself is.... I'm not sure how to explain this. She's got a great voice and it *appears* like she's really take-action and proactive and a strong character. But then I finished book, sat there for a second, and thought "what did she actually DO?" It's so strange. She barely pushed the plot along, reacting more passively than actively propelling the plot, but she was still written in a way that made her appear to have great agency. I'm slightly baffled and in awe of how the author managed to pull that off. At any rate, Seraphina's passive/reactionary character was one major flaw, although it's hidden by a lot of pretty writing, emotion, well-placed tension and cliffhangers, and world building.

Seraphina's set-up is pretty cool. She's the music mistress, assistant to the head music guy, so she lives at the palace and plans all the musical events and shows for the big-shot parties and balls and funerals and stuff. I've never seen a protagonist with that career, so I thought that was really original and refreshing. Music played a huge motif throughout the story, so it was definitely threaded through nicely, not just mentioned once and forgotten. She really felt like A MUSIC MISTRESS. Nicely done.

Some of the other characters were... baffling. There's Prince Lucian Kiggs (i hate his name and thus it will take a lot to impress me about his character... unfortunately I was not impressed). Quite the gary stu love interest (and I GROANED when I realized he was going to be the love interest). So he's this prince, and he's acting far too chummy with Seraphina. Like, there is no way a prince is going to even look at her let alone act like they're BFFs. I rolled my eyes here. Wish fulfillment, author. Wish fulfillment. *wags finger*

Anyway, Lucian's gary stu-ness. So he's the prince, captain of the royal guard, super smart and well-read, loyal, good looking, charming, funny, polite, never lies, and has a tragic backstory. The guy had zero flaws.

There were some descriptions of Seraphina's love for him, certain passages, that were exceptionally well written and heartbreaking and got my eyes watering. So I'll definitely give points for the way Seraphina's emotions, love, grief, fear, longing, just her entire character in general, was written.

The book is written in first person, which was hard to get into at the beginning, but about halfway through I got used to it, and the author used it to a great effect. Overall, though, I think the book would've benefitted from a 3rd person limited pov, rather than 1st person, which tends to feel very strange in high fantasy stories. The author really has to work to pull that off. I think Hartman came very, very close, kind of hovering around that line of acceptable, with the pov.

There were many moments, especially around halfway through and going into the climax, where I couldn't put the book down. Despite it being a quieter story with not too much plot, Hartman handled the tension really well and made this a page turner. There was just enough hints of conflict and tension and humanity that kept me wanting to read more. So huge points for her there.

One issue I want to point out is her cliffhangers. Several times I noted false cliffhangers-as in, one chapter ends in a huge cliffhanger, but the very first sentence of the next chapter reveals it was a false alarm. This creates an anticlimactic feeling and falsely manipulates the reader.

Overall, strong debut book for Hartman! I'd recommend it for anyone who loves music and dragons. :)

4.5 stars