Saving Silver (The Draak Legacy, #1)

by Xavier Neal

[Caitiebelle]

I...didn't hate it. It HAS potential and there were things I really liked, but there were also some things that really got on my nerves lol... and I could just be very picky and unfair, but ...it is what it is.

The world is good, from what we see, I like the idea the author has here - but I also feel a bit. meh. Like there's a bit "too much" and at some points, I'm not sure who exactly Z is speaking to or what/who they even are. It seems absolutely EVERYTHING in this book has a magical component of some sort, so Goggle is Geggel, MAPS is a GPS and the sister of a Genie?! You know...and..a grandfather clock that...talks? And...works as a clockmaker?...so there are things like this where I'm getting visions of Beauty and the Beast (which I don't really want haha) and cursed servants who turn into ornaments and furniture - it's a bit odd to me.

The thing is that the book series has good potential. I loved the plot about the bad guys here and that this will obviously continue on in other books - there is an ongoing danger here. This was great.
The fight scenes leave me something to be desired a bit...though not ..bad...I felt like I'm sort of still having problems CONNECTING to what is going on.

And this is a problem throughout the book. Not to mention that it really irks me when I see 10 sentences on ONE page...as in 10 sentences took up the entire page. And many one words just paragraphed down. That really irks me. lol.

I actually thought there was something wrong with my copy of the book for second and randomly selected pages to see if it continued or if it was just in the beginning, but nope...it does continue.
This means that the book is vastly shorter than it looks and is made to stretch longer. And I don't like that. Amazon claims it has 295 pages. Well...it has pages with 10 or fewer sentences on most of the pages, and some pages with a clump of sentences that needed to be paragraphs, only to return to one word and short sentences with 3 spaces between them for the next half of the page.
This is not good at all. And I really really hope this changes in the next book.

I ended up giving this book 3, which I rounded it up to in the end because even though there were things that annoy me and I still feel like I'm scratching the surface of the book never really able to "get into" and connect properly with the events and the characters, and I did wonder if I would DNF this book more than once, I did stick to it and it does have hope for me. I DO like the idea the Author has here, though I could live without knowing there is such a thing as a FLAMINGO SHIFTER I mean..come on...lol. I do want to see if maybe things are better in A.D's book which is book number 2 if I understand the title correctly, I mean I don't know, but it's called 'Getting Gold' and A.D is the gold-coloured dragon of the brothers.
I really hope Little B gets a book because I just loved him.

I would also just like to say that I don't recommend re-using "eternalized phrases" in new books. Even if they are not copyrighted, people will still immediately refer them to a different book/series so using a phrase that has been eternalized by the Game of Thrones television series for 8 long years on the air, is unfortunate I think. As I said, it's not copyright, and any author can use it as she/he pleases, but it's not something I would recommend you do.

"Mother of Dragons" has been eternalized by the GOT series, and whilst this is probably a phrase that is used in many Dragon like books, the fact that GOT made it to the screen, eternalized this phrase to instantly become a GOT reference, and that put me off in the book, instantly. Using it just once as a bit of fun is OK, but to make it into a saying put me off a bit, which is unfortunate and probably a bit unfair, but as I said, this is just one of those things that are probably best left out these days, but that's just my personal opinion! :)

Now after all this, will I read book 2? Yes. Because I do think there is potential here and I hope I don't offend with this wall of text, but I am trying to be honest and tell you what bothered me and what I would like to see done better.
I am by no means an Author so telling me to just go write my own book if I don't like it, isn't something I am going to do - but I am giving what I hope can be taken as constructive criticism and feedback. :)

I have not read anything else by this author, so this was my first experience with her.