Spoiler-Free Blog
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath was one of my favorite ARCs from last year – and its publication day is this week! In honor of that, I’m re-sharing my review here on my blog.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for this ARC. All opinions are my own.
What’s To Shape a Dragon’s Breath about?
Anequs, an indigenous islander in this fantasy world, is required to attend the colonizer’s school away from her people after a newly-hatched dragon chooses her to be its rider.
This book was both wholesome and entertaining.
With great diverse representation and an overall wholesome feel, this young adult book takes you on a journey to a world where the main villain is politics and racism. This book is for you if you love detailed worldbuilding.
While this book covers heavy themes like racism, xenophobia, and colonization as assimilation is forced onto our main character, it’s balanced out with scenes of going to class, making friends, and taking adventures in the city. And dragon training, of course!
Anequs herself is a satisfying main character. She is strong-willed, forward, and open-minded. She suffers no miscommunication, she seeks people out first, she extends her hand to those who are downtrodden and speaks up in defense of herself and others.
I also appreciated that this book gave the characters breathing room. Our first impressions weren’t always accurate, and we had a chance to see them grow and evolve as well. We also got some great representation in this book. The core culture revolves around indigenous people, of course, but we also got to see rep for autism, LGBTQ+, and polyamory.
The worldbuilding was incredibly detailed and intricate. In addition to unique place names and ruling class titles, we also got new words and definitions for scientific principles. It felt so fleshed out and believable – though it did take some time for me to keep everyone and everything straight in my head.
Should you read To Shape a Dragon’s Breath?
I highly recommend this book to fans of young adult fantasy. It was fun while still covering important topics in a digestible way.
Keep an eye out – this one releases on May 9, 2023.
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One response to “To Shape a Dragon’s Breath: A superb cozy fantasy”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this book! It’s great to hear that you enjoyed it and found it engaging. Your review has definitely piqued my interest and I look forward to checking it out for myself. It’s always wonderful to discover new books and authors to add to my reading list, and I appreciate your recommendation. Thanks again for taking the time to share your review! 😉