Eona (Dragoneye, #2)

by Alison Goodman

[sa090]

Do you know that feeling of wanting to do something so much but there are other things that take priority in life? That was my struggle with this book, no matter how badly I wanted to read it, things had to hinder me from doing so. I finished it in 4-5 sittings over the course of 11 or so days. The worst part about all of that is that the further we went into the book; the more interesting everything became... Yay.

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I love the fact that in her writing Alison Goodman tackles big issues, in the first book it was gender and gender roles and in this book it was power and morality. Just like its prequel these two elements are deeply integrated into the plot line of this book and the best thing about it is that it doesn't just come from one very righteous side but it tests the boundaries of the morality of the characters, either those in that position of power or those being affected by it which makes this struggle a very frustrating but amazing journey of self discovery to follow. The situations Eona was put in were tragic more often than not because they required a very specific course of action that will save the day obviously but it leaves you feeling "was it really worth it?" In the end. The fact that Alison Goodman can elicit so many feelings of the sort with her writing made the book better, she also has awesome quotes that can easily sum up her book.

"History does not care about the suffering of the individual. Only the outcome of their struggles."

The other thing that I really enjoyed in the book was the world building, I highly praised her work in that area in "Eon" and I will praise it once again in "Eona" because honestly I haven't felt so in the moment with the characters, their situation and their locations more than I had with this book. Like it's easier to focus on the characters than anything else in some books I read earlier but with her style of writing, I feel like I'm right there with them. And imagining everything she's describing from new locations, to new terms, new powers and everything in between such an easy task that I don't need to take a moment to try and remember where something specific happened. It's a big book (600 pages) but it wasn't hard to stay on track despite the forced breaks I had to take in between each sitting.

I'm not saying the book was perfect of course, because there were things in it that made me a little angry for a few chapters. Some characters were one of them, specifically when it came to the morality and power issue I talked about earlier. There were a couple of characters here that were annoying to read about, one of them was reacting in a way that I really didn't expect of them to the majority of what Eona did, sometimes I understood and mimicked their reaction to her actions but there are other times when I'm just sitting here internally yelling "What the hell?! Do you actually see another solution?!" But they just went on and on and on. I could argue that it's their morality in place here but when it just made them look like this ungrateful whiny individual it doesn't make it as enjoyable to read.

The second major issue was the romance or rather the effect it had on Eona, not counting the last chapter of the book she felt really pathetic sometimes. Some of the events made her seem incapable of using her mind instead of her heart when deciding anything, the fact that this girl pretended to be a guy for the past 5+ years of her life and is only opening up to her womanly side now makes this turn of events a little too hard to believe and made it seem like it's there for creating unneeded drama for those in the target market that love this sort of thing more than anything else. There was one more thing I hated regarding this section but it's based on me as a person rather than the effect it has on the book's events because when taking said events + before mentioned elements into account, it's induction could be seen as necessary but not exactly the only way it could've went.

There also was this huge mystery going on in the book and I think that Alison Goodman handled it very very well, she didn't reveal too much but whatever new information came my way it just made me think about the connections and such which was a pretty fun side activity if you will. When I finished Eon, there was a course of action that needed some correction and while I wanted it to be way too brutal, more bloody and actually by Eona's hand it still left me very satisfied to see it happen so I'm content. I will be checking her other books if I get the chance because they've been really fun so far despite the minor-ish problems.

Final rating: 4/5