Book Review: Shadow Scale

Author: Rachel Hartman

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 608 pages

Summary: The kingdom of Goredd: a world where humans and dragons share life with an uneasy balance, and those few who are both human and dragon must hide the truth. Seraphina is one of these, part girl, part dragon, who is reluctantly drawn into the politics of her world. When war breaks out between the dragons and humans, she must travel the lands to find those like herself—for she has an inexplicable connection to all of them, and together they will be able to fight the dragons in powerful, magical ways. 
 
As Seraphina gathers this motley crew, she is pursued by humans who want to stop her. But the most terrifying is another half dragon, who can creep into people’s minds and take them over. Until now, Seraphina has kept her mind safe from intruders, but that also means she’s held back her own gift. It is time to make a choice: Cling to the safety of her old life, or embrace a powerful new destiny? 

My Review: Well, this book was certainly not what I was expecting.  Nothing at all.  This book surprised me in so many ways that I think it might have scared me at some

points.  Or in the least startled.

The Setting: Just like before, it was imaginative and creative as ever.  You saw every landscape so vividly and clearly.  Because Seraphina traveled into more lands and experienced different things than the first book, you actually get to see their lands in a beautiful way.  This was one of the best parts about the book.

The Characters:  Because Seraphina is gathering her other half-dragons, you get to meet a lot of new characters then you did in the last book.  Most of them are quite refreshing while others... others you just want them to completely disappear from the book and live a happy life with the other characters.  Here were my favorites:

Princess Glisselda!  She was a magical wonderful person in this book.  She was a very determined young girl, she knows how to lead a whole kingdom, and she... she's just great.

Abdo and Orma are always going to hold such an awesome place in my heart.  Though they have quite tragic stories in this book...  :(

And I really do not like Jannoula.  She is probably the worst character in this whole book.  No... she is the worst character in this book.  She fools you every single time, and you think she's good, then she does something horrible and you go back to thinking she's evil.  -_-  I really just don't like her.

Also, I wanted to tell you all this.  Close to the end, Jannoula says her background and it is very... inappropriate.  There was something small like this in Seraphina, but it wasn't like this.  So please don't start this book and expect it to be all okay, because this isn't.

That is my review!  I give this book.... *drum roll* 4 stars!

Have you read Shadow Scale?  If so, did you like it?  If not, would you read it?  Tell me in the comments!

Charisma