Dragonhaven

by Robin McKinleyI felt a little bad for saying I was mad at Robin McKinley in the last post, so I decided to read one of her recent novels to make up for it.

Dragonhaven is the story of Jake, a teenager growing up in a Wild Animal Preserve. Both his parents have worked there his whole life, and he plans on living there his entire life as well. The catch is that life at the preserve is a bit precarious because money is tight and various government factions are always looking for ways to get rid of it so they can use the land for development or oil drilling or gold hunting or whatever. And the biggest catch of all is that the preserve is actually for preserving dragons. Thats right, dragons.

It turns out dragons aren't just mythical creatures afterall. They've just figured out how to survive without attracting much human notice. There are preserves in Kenya and Australia too. But the preserve Jake lives/works at is the biggest in the world. And other than finding dragon scales and smelling the air no one has seen a real dragon in decades. Until Jake stumbles upon a dying dragon who has just given birth...and all the babies are dead except one. Technically it is illegal for a human to "interfere" with nature to save a dragon's life...and so Jake makes a split-second decision to try to save the dragonlet, come what may in consequences. And the entire book is pretty much about his struggle to help the dragonlet survive without attracting the notice of anyone around him....

I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It was laugh-out-loud funny in a quite a few places. And it was interesting, I didn't want to put it down because I genuinely didn't know how the plot would resolve itself. However, I picked the book up not knowing anything about it, and it took about 50 pages for me to catch on to what the book was really about. Mostly this is because the entire novel is told via Jake's streaming consciousness, in the past tense because the story happens when he is 14-15 years old, but he's writing it down as an 18-19 year old. The author does a great job of getting into a teenage boy's head: this book reads just like you're really listening to a 15 yr old talk and try to explain things. And this is partly why its so funny in places, because of his descriptions or whatnot. But it is also why its a bit hard to get into until after 50 pages, because Jake is struggling with how to start telling his story.

If you can make it past the first 50 pages I definitely recommend this book. Its entertaining. Original. And it feels real, even though its fantasy. I think you'll find it gives a view of dragons that hasn't been given in literature ever before.