Title Shatter the Sky Author Rebecca Kim Wells Cover Art --- Publisher Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers - 2019 First Printing Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers - 2019
	Title Storm the Earth Author Rebecca Kim Wells Cover Art --- Publisher --- First Printing ---
	Category Young Adult Warnings None Main Characters Maren, Kaia, Sev Main Elements Dragons Website rebeccawellswrites.com

Shatter the Sky

This book was available for free for a couple weeks on the Rivetedlit.com website, and since I can't get the site to work on my tablet, I must admit I tend to skim books I need to read on my desktop computer screen since both the backlight and the uncomfortable chair makes me want to sit there for as short a time as possible.

Thus, maybe that's why I found I didn't feel much of anything having read it. I didn't dislike it, I can't point a finger and say the characters were annoying, and as YA heroines go, Maren didn't annoy me at all, she only spent a little bit of time going "I'm not good enough" and being the helpless damsel in distress. In fact there is very little romance at all, though there is a bit of a love triangle going on (maybe she'll pass on both humans in the next book and just stick to the dragons?). The world was ok, nothing that jumps out as special, but kind of liked the idea there was a mountain where people used to bond to dragons, at least till the dragons were taken by an invading empire, and even more interesting that the dragons could be controlled by regular people through scent. A lot of creatures communicate with scent and yet it shows up very rarely in SF and I think this might be the first Fantasy where I've seen it used. I suspect we'll learn more about the world in the second book as the first one hints that things are what they seem on the surface.

I also figured out who the lost Prince of Ruzi was pretty much from the first mention that there was a lost prince, but then I figured I've read enough YA novels to get good at guessing those kinds of things, while the characters in the book haven't had the opportunity (nor do they know they are following the standard trope and if the protagonist takes an interest in, and is helped by, another character, that other character can't be just some regular person any more than the protagonist can, both have to have destinies and be "special" because regular people can't be heroes of a YA novel, they can think they are regular, but they never are).

One kuddos I do give it, it treats homosexual relationships as if there were nothing. Nobody bats an eye when they find out Maren is in love with a girl, she doesn't have to struggle to accept her sexuality, she doesn't have to convince others her love is true, it is representing the world as it should be which I find a more powerful message. Instead of pointing it out as something unique and strange, make it something not even worth noting since it is considered by all to be completely normal. Although I could also see people complain about Maren getting interested in Sev, but I think that stills works since it's a world where gender doesn't matter. She's not a lesbian cheating on her girlfriend, she's just a human having trouble deciding between two potential lovers ('cause it's a YA novel and has to have a love triangle in it). And like I said, hopefully in the end she just picks the dragon since I didn't particularly like Kaia or Sev...

In the end, all I can say is that I didn't love it nor felt drawn into it, but I am definitely interested enough to find out how it ends, especially given there is only one more book to discover how things turn out. And maybe I'll have more to say then, perhaps this book is more a personal tale of one girl who just wants to get her girlfriend back, but the next book may have her bringing down an entire empire. We'll see!