Fireborne: 1 (Aurelian Cycle)

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Lee and Annie, tight friends, both misunderstood the other's reaction--and when the reader realizes it, the game alters. The "battles" we were told about do happen but they are rather anticlimatic as they are only really about Lee and Annie's relationship. I was unsure if I really enjoyed Lee's POV because just in his first POV, I was annoyed by Annie before we even really meet her.

But he’s a swing character, crafted to do the opposite of what you expect when the author needs something doing that doesn’t make sense.I see the comparison and mention of Plato's Republic and the French Revolution, even Blitz and I personally saw some similarity with the Russian Revolution. i can tell that the author put a lot of thought into the complex politics because it was one of the main elements that kept me hooked to the story. Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone--even the lowborn--a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders. You get the sense that Atreus must once have felt the way Griff does now: angry and tired, and desperate to find any way to free his loved ones from the dragonlords’ yoke.

Annie and Lee's new world involves book burnings, tightly spun propaganda, and a clear overclass that still has privilege over the expendable lowest class. Still, Lee and Annie (and Griff, now) keep striving to find justice in a world hobbled by the systems put in place by the last bunch of omelet-makers, idealists and pragmatists and tyrants alike. And the exploration of the political and social aspects created an extra depth of reflection for myself that I feel I don't get with some other books (fantasy or not, just books in general).Just as many governments are bad at governing, many freedom fighters are quite poor at fighting for freedom. The relationships between the characters are sometimes messy and complicated, but you can really feel their connections, even when they disagree with each other. It’s a heady idea with many inherent flaws and I think Munda does an excellent job of showing that without letting it become a political treatise. As a serf she would never have been permitted near a dragon, but now she and Lee are dragon riders, for the revolution made it possible for commoners to test for dragon riding. From action fans to romance fans, political junkies to fantasy lovers, many different audiences will find something rewarding here.

While it may not draw you in the way Fourth Wing does from the first chapter, it eases you into a much darker, much more upfront world that still relies on dragons. Told from a dual point of view, the story is pitched as Aegon Targaryen and Hermione Granger with dragons, [.But total annihilation is more difficult than it looks when it's hand to hand slaughter, and a few got away, or were spared--including one of our protagonists, Lee, who was born Leo, his father an important dragon lord. I look down at this boy, vulnerable, at my mercy, and think, To the ends of the earth I will protect you. But with that greatness came arrogance, and with that arrogance corruption, and with that corruption downfall.