This is another book that was unknown to me before it appeared on the Ignyte ballot. The blurb promises a blend of dragon-riding and magic school, two genres that I love in theory but in practice often don't get along with. In particular I'm yet to find a dragon-riding book that I especially loved. Still, this is well-reviewed across the board, so I went into it with cautious optimism. 

I gave this about 120 pages before deciding that it wasn't for me and putting it down. Given that the Ignyte Awards explicitly has a YA novels category I was surprised when I started reading this that it felt like a YA book rather than an adult novel, and it definitely seems to have been marketed as YA or NA. That was the first thing that made me think, "I don't really want to read this". I have nothing against YA or NA books - I was a children's bookseller for years at the time when the post-Hunger Games YA boom was at its peak, and I've read and loved a ton of YA. But it's not what I what to read these days. Still, I decided to at least give this a chance.

Unfortunately it just wasn't doing anything for me. I enjoyed some of the earlier chapters, particularly Anequs' sighting of a dragon and her finding of the egg, but once the magic school elements came into play and we began to be shown some of the setting I lost interest. I was struggling to find anything to like about the main character, the world wasn't really landing for me, and after reading a quarter of the book I didn't feel like it was going anywhere.

One day I'll find a dragon-riding book I love, but this wasn't it.