Review: Talon by Julie Kagawa

This was a book I was so disappointed when I was unable to get an ARC at BEA the summer of 2014, but then I believe I was able to finally get it this past year through YA Book Exchange.  I have to say I did enjoy it, it was different from what I guess I thought it was going into it.  And now I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Rogue. Anyone have an ARC of that to trade me?  :-)

The story is told through the view points of two people at first, and then we add a third person towards the second half.  The main character though, I believe, is Ember.  Ember is a member of Talon, which means she is a dragon hatchling. When they reach a certain age, around 16, they get to go out and live with humans and have a "normal" life, since they are able to be in human form.  Ember and her twin brother Dante, have been sent to live near a beach.  Twins are rare for dragons, and so Ember has been lucky enough to have a brother with her in all stages of her life.  Once they get to where they are staying, they find out that their training is going to begin a bit earlier than planned.  Ember and Dante are trained separately, and Ember's trainer seems to be the trainer from hell.  And some of the exercises she is doing remind me of what Mr. Miyagi had Daniel doing in the Karate Kid movie.  Although her trainer is nothing like the kindly old Mr. Miyagi.  And after they are done training, or during their training, they will find out which sect of the Talon they will be training to join. 

The 2nd person is Garrett.  He is a member of the Order of St. George, soldiers who hunt and kill dragons.  He has been put on assignment to try to catch a hatchling that they know will be in the same town where Ember is.  And Ember is one of the possible suspects since she is new to town.  He is sent to infiltrate the groups of teens and determine who is his target.  And while he has always been loyal in all ways, after hanging out with Ember for awhile, and getting to know her as a girl, without finding out if she is a dragon, he wonders if dragons are all as bad as he has been told. 

And towards the end a character that we do meet early on, a rogue dragon named Riley, begins to get his own chapters.  Any dragon who does not want to follow the Talon's rules and fall in line in one of their sects, well they have to go into hiding and are called rogues.  Only Riley lets Ember in on some things that she's never known about Talon, and even shows her proof of some of the things he tells her.

In the end Ember must decide if Talon is still where she belongs, and Garrett must decide if he will follow through with his mission. 

Another great, and unique, story by Kagawa.

Review: The Girl Who Never Was by Skylar Dorset

I got a copy of this book through the YA Book Exchange. through a trade with Stephanie from A Dream Within a Dream.  It was definitely a good read. I enjoyed the different things that went with the faerie mythology in this world.  But at the beginning it was a little slow, and a little confusing kind of.  Overall I did enjoy it and I need to read on in the next book to find out what will become of Selkie and Ben, as well as the prophecy about Selkie and four other faeries. 

Selkie is a girl who has always felt a little strange.  She lives with her weird aunts because her father is in a mental hospital.  Her mother she never knew.  Ben is a cute guy that she sees down at the park, and that she has a bit of a crush on, but he's also a bit odd as well. 

When it is her birthday she is really feeling off, but she tells Ben, and she and her friend also decide to start looking into who her mother was and where she might be.  But because of the questions she is asking, things start going wrong.  It turns out she has broken the enchantment that Ben had put on her and the city of Boston to keep the other faeries, including her own mother, from finding her.  It seems there is a prophecy about her helping to defeat the Seelie Court, the ones that are terrorizing everyone else.  And because of this her mother and all the other Seelies would want to kill her.  But now Selkie must go and figure out how to keep herself safe.  And before she can even think about confronting her mother, Ben is taken instead of her, and she must go to save him.

In the world it turns out that Selkie's mother doesn't want to kill her. Because she has come to the world it seems the prophecy won't turn out the way that would destroy them.  In fact, it also says that one day Ben will betray Selkie.  But Selkie won't believe it, they've made promises to each other, ones that she believes can't be destroyed by anything.  In the end Selkie will risk her own life to save Ben, and Ben, along with Selkie's aunts and friends will risk themselves to save her as well.

Definitely we are left a bit hanging at the end, needing to know what will happen between Ben and Selkie after a big secret is revealed. And that is why I will need to go on.  If you enjoy fae stories, this will be one you should read, just know that at times it is a bit slow.