17 reviews for:

Dragon Heart

Cecelia Holland

2.98 AVERAGE

mkpatter's review

3.0

Decent but not the book I thought it was going to be based on the beginning.
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cupiscent's review


Giving up after four chapters - roughly a third of the way into the book - because as much as I enjoyed some elements (Marioza ftw) I am just not engaging with the style; for me, it simply lacks immediacy and vigour. Perhaps it's the POV: third, distant bordering on the impersonal, and spread around among a lot of candidates. Perhaps it's the dialogue-lite narrative. (I am always happiest when characters are crossing communication.) Perhaps it's that all the wonderful weird of the setting seems to be merely marginalia rather than fully explored.

Just not for me.

francescaalexis's review

2.0

I feel bad giving this book such a low rating. I think it's a blue cheese of a book, something that will be someone's favorite but isn't to everyone's taste, and is especially not to everyone's taste if they take a big bite of it thinking it's something else.

After a strong start with the actual dragon, the focus shifts to a Fall of the House of Usher-type story, with a complicated and and dysfunctional family in a moody castle in a dreamy and indistinct setting. It is significantly less fun than watching a Dragon and a Princess get to know each other. Too many characters in too short a space ironically creates a section that seems to go on forever. Really disappointing.

zep's review

1.0

This book is not remotely what it is advertised as. It is not about Tirza, and it is not about the dragon; neither of them are in the book much at all.

I wouldn't judge a book solely over bad advertising decisions on the part of the publisher, but, cover and blurb aside, even the book itself makes false promises. In the beginning, everything about the book promises a whimsical fantasy adventure centered around this girl who can't speak to other people but who is understood by a bloodthirsty dragon. I was enthralled.

Then suddenly the book's number of POV's ballooned, Tirza and the dragon were both completely and arbitrarily sidelined, and the book's plot proceeded to focus on despicable politicians and their useless, endless scheming against each other. The characters were thin and unlikable and often very stupid, and the only one I did like randomly became more and more unlikable and inept for no apparent reason (this wasn't a well done descent into terribleness, it just felt arbitrary and wrong for his character). I guess a lot of things technically happened, but none of it leads to anything. The book goes nowhere. Intriguing questions and mysteries are raised and then summarily abandoned. Fights are fought, with extremely fuzzy, plot-holey motivations, but still the plot stands still and the characters don't change either. And meanwhile, hints of cool magical worldbuilding are dropped everywhere, but nothing is ever explored or resolved or even remotely relevant to anything; they're just useless background coloring that is left hanging and which just makes you keep thinking the book might maybe get better eventually. It doesn't.

I was really into this book at the beginning, and that made me put up with it for a long while in anticipation that it would somehow pay off and/or even just let Tirza and/or the dragon be in the book again, but nope. It felt like the first several chapters of one book, and then an entirely different book haphazardly bolted on.

Reading this just made me really angry.
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serenam's review

2.0

Overall, I found this book incredibly disappointing. I wanted to like it, and even though I decided early on that it wasn't any good, there were aspects of it that kept me reading in hopes that it might improve. It did not. Rather, it continued on in this mediocre state, woven entirely of the very very good and the very very bad.

the good

1. There is a dragon.

2. The protagonist is a mute princess, who the dragon holds captive/befriends (it's complicated).

3. Good family relationships -- mostly between siblings, but the mother is also present and loved, and they reminisce some about their father.

4. The author is not afraid to kill off key characters.

5. The premise? Brilliant. The execution...


the bad

1. The dragon appears in the very beginning of the book, then is hardly mentioned at all throughout most of the rest of the book while the focus switches to the princes and their convoluted battle with the emperor's sons for the crown.

2. Why hasn't the mute princess learned to write, or to communicate through gestures or drawing? Why isn't this addressed?

3. The death scenes are described matter-of-factly, and tend to be rather gruesome.

4. There are two or three very sensual scenes that were all entirely unnecessary -- not only did the author give too much detail, but in each case the whole paragraph or even entire scene could have been left out. They were not at all necessary to the plot or character development.

5. My biggest issue with this book is that it should have been 100-200 pages longer. It was far too choppy.

Originally posted on poetree.

swekster's review

2.0

The first chapter works great as a short story. Unfortunately it's all downhill from there.

A shady empire, a living castle, more princes and princesses that you can shake a stick at, multiple protagonists, and you have one giant mish-mash, where there aren't any characters you can love or hate.

It doesn't help that it appears that all the characters are dumber than a box of rocks, and that they exhibit any trait that is needed for the current page, and it's forgotten once the page is turned.

crystallinegirl's review

3.0

I picked this up on a whim; the cover and synopsis made it sound like yet another maiden-befriends-a-dragon standard fantasy novel, with her family in the balance. I was wrong. I'd never heard of the author, but apparently she has been writing historical fiction since the 60s, and she took that wealth of experience and added a dragon to make this gothic tale of a family fighting to keep their sovereignty against an encroaching empire.

I actually wish the dragon had featured in the story more than he did; I want to know more about his history and why he was so intrigued by Tirza. Why they could understand each other when no one else could. I'm disappointed that was never explained.

The mysteries of the castle were never really explained, either, though one of the stories Tirza tells the dragon hints at it. Castle Ocean seems to be alive, in some ways, refusing to be altered from its original construction by slowly reverting any changes and luring invaders down dark hallways they will never find their way out of again. The gothic atmosphere of the novel was fascinating.

It definitely absorbed my attention for several hours. I'd give it a 3/5, I think. Not incredibly outstanding, but well done and a little hypnotic.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.