Bentwhistle the Dragon in a Threat From the Past Review

Full disclaimer: I was reached out to by the author to read and review this series. This is my HONEST review. I've previously said how it annoys me when youtubers, instagrammers, bloggers, etc talk up products that they don't truly care about and I refuse to fall into that. However, I will always go into parts that I did like as I understand every author works incredibly hard in their writing.

FYI there will be a lot of spoilers in this review as everything I have to say about it requires me to reveal certain things.

Summary: Dragons exist, but the humans don't know it. Instead, the dragons are able to disguise themselves as humans and help guide the human race. Peter is a youngish dragon who gets pulled into a mysterious plot that nobody else believes him about. He must blend in with the humans while still protecting them.

The book starts out with a tale from the past. It's a nice subtle reference to a saint (St. George). The knight in this story is also called George and slays a terrifying dragon that was attacking a town. Spoilers: The hero knight is a dragon in disguise. The slain dragon and his conspirators are locked up in ice for what's supposed to be all eternity.

It then goes to present day with the main character Peter. Cude is very descriptive and you can easily picture this secret underground world. However, the endless descriptions can become a little too much. It's quite thick and felt as if it was doing a little too much telling instead of showing.

My first thoughts were that it was a little quirky and could be compared to the television show, Merlin. Perhaps a bit better for a younger audience though. I'm now twenty so I struggle getting through the more juvenile books now.

The biggest issue I had with this book was the sexism. I could absolutely tell that it was unintentional and that got on my nerves even more.

If the author reads this review, please take this as constructive criticism because sometimes it needs to be pointed out.

Here are the examples of what infuriated me:

1. Richie, Peter's female best friend, was described as being perfectly beautiful, athletic, and intelligent. There are some hints towards Peter longing to be with her, I'm not even going to go into what a cliche that is. Despite her renowned intelligence, she doesn't believe Peter about Major Manson (the villain) and has a dumb argument with Peter so the audience feels sympathy for Peter and dislikes her. Peter is also described as being kind of a lame in appearance dragon. It just encourages the stereotype that the "ugly" guy can get a hot girl, but we never see an "ugly" girl getting a hot guy. It's encouraging the idea that women have to be the whole package to get a man's attention. This is never true for men though.

2. There's this huge dragon sports game that Peter and Tank (the other best friend who's a male) were super into and it was an all-male sport. If Richie is supposedly more athletic and badass than so many other people/dragons, how the f is it an all male sport? Just no. Plus, Richie is obviously into sports when we hear about her lacrosse skills and yet she was not at the game with them. They didn't even mention her like, "Oh shame Richie couldn't come" or "Wish we could've gotten a third ticket for Richie." It was just a classic dumb bro scene. However, she was carted out later to watch another game on tv with them so she was obviously into the sport at that point? It was such a plot hole.

3. Throughout the entire novel there were four female characters with speaking roles. And I counted! One was Richie, his best friend so she has a few scenes. Another was Dr. Island, an employee fired by the cruel Major Manson, she appeared in one scene. Third was a beautiful bartender at the sports arena for Peter to ogle at and another usage of how a hot girl can still go for the "ugly" guy, she had two short scenes. Fourth was the secretary for Peter's boss who acted like a bitch and had one scene. THAT WAS IT. Lame underdeveloped female characters!

4. Now for the scene that pissed me off like no other: When Richie realizes she envies the humans because of their children. She wants to have children. NO. NO. NO. Can you go any further into a female character stereotype??? A WOMAN DOES NOT HAVE TO SUDDENLY REALIZE THEIR PURPOSE IS TO HAVE BABIES

Richie's character was so bland and horrible for any feminism ideology. Honestly it made me think of the cool girl scene in Gone Girl. Watch it here, it's a really great monologue actually. The author was literally just creating a cool girl for his unintelligent af male character.

Getting away from the sexism... There was also a certain scene that encouraged animal cruelty: Peter got angry that a neighbor's cat was pooping on his lawn and that the owners wouldn't do anything about it, so he decided to burn the cat's tail off. He even dared to think back on it and still find it humorous. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! That is animal abuse!!!!!!!!! You're encouraging harming a cat so it won't poop on your lawn??? NUH UH, NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT FUNNY.

Regardless of these two matters that I took great issue with, the book had quite a few plot holes. Peter was a dumb character who could've handled every situation he faced much better.

It took me a really long time to finish this book. I think it was too long for how many flaws it had and there were many times I was tempted to not finish. But if I review a book, I want to have fully finished it. I will not be finishing the series though.

Two out of five stars