Seraphina Review

I am so sorry I have not reviewed a book in so long! I have been in the worst reading slump. I also had a couple AP exams and I got addicted to The Mindy Project (curse you Fox for canceling it!) I have been reading this book so slowly and I finally finished it Saturday. However, yesterday was Mothers Day and both of my sisters came home from college so it was a little busy! Hopefully my reading slump is over and I can get back to reading and reviewing!

Rachel Hartman's Seraphina is about a world where dragons and humans live peacefully alongside each other. The dragons can become human and live in the human world. Except, the peace is an illusion. While the treaty is about forty years old, there are still a lot of tensions and hostile attacks against the dragons. Seraphina is a part of both worlds and has a lot to hide, she is an unusually talented musician in the court but does her best to stay out of the limelight. When a member of the royal family is murdered, she is drawn into the investigation with Prince Lucian. She has to constantly lie to keep herself alive and uncover the details of the larger mystery.

I'm not sure if it was just my reading slump, but I could not get into this book very much. I wasn't pulled into the world and I could only read a few chapters at a time without getting bored. I did not feel the romance at all either. Don't get me wrong, I know people who loved this book, I just did not love it that much. I've always loved dragons, Eragon helped with that obsession and this book interested me, but it was also a bit weird in my opinion. Seraphina was an alright character, but I never connected with her. I thought everything worked out too neat and nicely. In all of the minor and major climaxes, I blinked and it would be over. What was supposed to be an intense moment ended too soon with not much actually happening.

I thought it was also really confusing at times because it would use their world's terminology and not explain what a word meant. At one point I did not understand that one word was a title and the other was a name so I thought there were two different characters when there was really just one. I did not catch on to this until 300 pages into the book! I understand in high fantasy books there will be a different vocabulary, but I won't know what any of the words mean if they're not explained!

To be perfectly honest, this book will quickly fade in my memory. It was not memorable and while I will probably eventually read the second book, it will not be for awhile. Also, while I did not enjoy this book I know others do, it just wasn't a book that I liked. I am not against anybody who did like it, we all have different opinions which I like to keep in mind!