Gemstone Reviews [Closed for Catch up]

Review #13-The Book of Dragons

Title: The Book of Dragons

Author: Rebekah Markley (RatherBeABookDragon)

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: PG possibly PG 13 (may contain violence later on)

# of chapters:  9 (ongoing)

# of chapters I read: 2

Summary/Blurb:

 Verum Benivolum does what she needs to do. Like all the other residents of her castellum (village) she learns the old languages. Her mind is strong, her needs are simple, and her friends are loving. Caprie Benivolum, her younger sister is the only family she had left, Paulo leo (Little lion) and Felis mauris (Funny puma) are the sisters trouble making kittens that help Verum with her work at the Bibliotheca (library).

She's not afraid to stand for what's right, even if it means standing alone. The only thing she won't stand for is harm falling on Caprie. The book is only the beginning, the pain will be the end.

Review:

Cover:

First thought: Yay, dragons! Second thought: Will this be a comprehensive guide on dragons? Will the information include diet, habitat, powers, etc.? I'm expecting a lot of things about dragons, just by the title.

Now the cover...that's a different story. There's way too much going on. The title is unreadable, as well as the author's name (well, almost), and it's unclear what the image is supposed to be.

The title is in the same font as the letters of the watermark and the colour is too dark—because it's juxtaposed over a darker image, you'd want the title to be in a lighter colour, to have a contrast between the two. The watermark lettering seems like gibberish; I've tried to decipher it, but it's just random letters put together in nonsensical words. So that could easily be eliminated.

I'd also suggest to using an image that is tied to the title—maybe a book with a picture of a dragon on the sleeve. There are a lot of graphic designers on here that can do magic with photoshop.

Overall—Dragons! Also, get a new cover.

Blurb:

The blurb wasn't compelling. There wasn't anything in particular that stood out for me, really the only thing I remember about this is the latin. I was expecting an actual talk about dragons, but, instead, I was given a repeat of "the book of dragons".

Alright, I can kind of guess that this book will play a role in the story (all items with cool names seem to be indispensable to the plot) but I fail to understand what connection it has to the life of the main character. I'm told that "It's secrets are the truth and in order to protect my family, I must face the truth." What does this mean? What truth?

What is the conflict? There isn't even the shadow of a conflict in this blurb. But, at least, I know that Verum has two kittens, Paulo leo and Felis mauris (why do I need to know their latin names? Is this for a Biology exam or something?)

Verum's life also seems kind of boring. I mean, she lives in a castle-kingdom thing, and works at a library—we all know how dull librarians are. The fact that they speak old (dead) languages doesn't fool me either.

There seems to be a whole chunk of information that is missing between this paragraph and the next one with "She's not afraid to stand for what's right, even if it means standing alone." Judging on what I'm given right now, the only thing I can see as problematic in her life are people who talk loudly in the library. She will definitely stand alone whilst berate them for being uncivilised.

Overall—Meh. The conflict needs to be hinted at while there should be less info (and latin names) about her sister and cats. Also, needs more references to dragons. 

First Impression:

I flipped to the "reference" chapter and I can tell you, this was way more interesting than the blurb. The dragons seem pretty normal, by this I mean that their powers are seen often, so nothing too crazy there...until I got to the "Book Dragon".

What made this dragon so interesting was all the "unknowns" I saw in place of its information. Reminds me a lot of Nightfury from "How to Train your Dragon". Because it didn't make an appearance very often, nobody really knew what its skills were (so everyone was scared shittless of it, coming up with the wildest theories, including that it was some kind of demon) which is what I think is happening in this book as well. (Have you watched the movie?)

The last sighting of the Book Dragon also seemed to have happened B.R. (Before Record), which I find pretty ironic. Maybe if Varum recites a magical spell then all the books from the library will merge together to create the "Book Dragon".

I like how you set this up. Now, for the first chapter.

You've done a pretty good job of introducing the characters and setting all in one place. We get a small glimpse into their lives and Verum's job. However, I really think that as a first chapter, it could've had a little more action, because it flatlined a couple of paragraphs in. We get more information on the behaviour of these cats (I bet you own a cat yourself), that anything else. It really didn't make me feel invested enough to read for too long, but I did so anyway, hoping that once you got the ball rolling things would pick up. In the following chapter, Felis' tail catches on fire, so maybe you should throw that in here.

There are other things that I've noticed as well:

1. Contradictions— "[...] lit a small fire to warm up our small home." —> "But later in the narration you say, "[...] she didn't like wandering around the large house when she was alone." So is there house small or big? More info.

2. I'd like Paulo and Felis to be more distinct in their personalities. Their names reflect their behaviour (for the most part), so this needs to be made more evident. I mean, even if their cats, they don't all behave the same way, am I right?

3. The foreign language and parenthesised translations were jarring and disturbed the flow of the writing. I don't think that it's vital for me to know that they call kula school, or that Bibliotheca means library. I suggest just sticking to the English, the readers really don't need a foreign language lesson. The only thing I find important here is the name of the cats, but even then, their translation would be best at the end of the chapter.

4. I need to feel more of a connection with Varum, the main character and need to know more about her sister Caprie. Do they have any parents?  

Overall— Spice things up.

Writing Style:

Overall, the writing is simple and easy to read. You didn't resort to big words just to make it sound better, and I'm grateful for that. But it also had some downfalls, in the sense that, your sentences were all the same length (short), the vocabulary was a tad repetitive at times (you used the word 'silly' whilst referring to the cats several times), and there were notable grammatical (e.g. homophones, prepositions, etc.) and punctuational errors (e.g. incorrect punctuation at the end of the dialogue, lack of commas in parts where they are necessary, etc.) It wasn't bad enough for me to make me gauge my eyes out, but it certainly was enough for me to notice them. 

Characters:

Varum—Works at a library to support her younger sister and two cats. That's all I got from this.

Caprie—Young enough to go to school. Wasn't given a lot of info to care about her either.

Felis— Cat #1.

Paulo—Cat #2.

Parents—Inexistent.

Diamond rating ♢ (1—10): 5

I'm not sure where the story is going, I wasn't even given a smidgen of an idea in the blurb. Everything seems to be a little too simplistic for my taste—I feel like there are a lot of layers that still need to be added in order for this story to go somewhere. Maybe it will become more engaging a couple more chapters in, but from what I've read, it won't be anytime soon.

Good luck!