Monday, October 27, 2014

Talon by Julie Kagawa

Coming Soon: October 28, 2014

Long ago, dragons were hunted to near extinction by the Order of St. George, a legendary society of dragon slayers. Hiding in human form and growing their numbers in secret, the dragons of Talon have become strong and cunning, and they're positioned to take over the world with humans none the wiser.

Ember and Dante Hill are the only sister and brother known to dragonkind. Trained to infiltrate society, Ember wants to live the teen experience and enjoy a summer of freedom before taking her destined place in Talon. But destiny is a matter of perspective, and a rogue dragon will soon challenge everything Ember has been taught. As Ember struggles to accept her future, she and her brother are hunted by the Order of St. George.

Soldier Garret Xavier Sebastian has a mission to seek and destroy all dragons, and Talon's newest recruits in particular. But he cannot kill unless he is certain he has found his prey: and nothing is certain about Ember Hill. Faced with Ember's bravery, confidence and all-too-human desires, Garret begins to question everything that the Order has ingrained in him: and what he might be willing to give up to find the truth about dragons.
My Thoughts:

I have liked everything I've read by this author. So this wasn't a surprise to me, by the end, how much I love this author and her writings. 

At first when reading Talon I thought it was going to be too similar or exactly like the Firelight Trilogy by Sophie Jordan. I was almost cringing at how much they were similar...at first. But I continued and as the story progressed, yes there were a lot of similarities but Kagawa is really good at taking a story and making it her own. 

As you can tell just by looking at the cover and by my mention of Firelight, this book is about dragons. The kind that can change into human form. The problem with these types of stories for me is I have a hard time relating or seeing these things as "beautiful" haha I even tried finding a picture to match was I was trying to picture in my head. But they are all pretty terrifying. The story of Talon is about a secret society of shape-shifting dragons and the Order who hunts them down. Your typical YA dragon story. From the story Talon is all about it's own species preservation and doing whatever it needs to achieve that. After being hunted down almost to extinction they decided to infiltrate human society, when the Order of St. George finds out about a possible dragon they decide to send two of their best to track them down, know for sure if it's them and then kill them. The problem with that? is when one of the hunters starts to have feelings for the main female character. typical.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Truly, there wasn't really anything new here. However I love Julie Kagawa's writing, she can take an ordinary story and still write it beautifully in such a way that you enjoy the story regardless of the outcome you know is going to happen. The romance was a bit eye rolling even thought you held onto the book wanting to know where Kagawa was going to take you. 

Overall I still really enjoyed the story and couldn't put it down. I have yet to be disappointed with anything Julie Kagawa writes. 

Sexual Content: moderate (PG-13 sexual tension, kissing)
Language: moderate (I think it was more of PG- PG-13 I think it was more than I expected but not horrible)
Violence: mild 
Drugs/Alcohol: moderate (underage drinking, knowledge that a character gets drunk)



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