Firebolt by Adrienne Woods

(The Dragonian #1)
3 stars
R- 2 (but it looks like that will maybe go up in later books)
language

Definitely YA-- parents should know that there is discussion of sex, especially virginity, which at first is played for comic effect and later actually has bearing on the plot. Also language-- both crudity and profanity.

Good premise.  Is the execution great? No.  But... even being sensitive to various things from reading the negative reviews... it wasn't THAT bad.

Elena's obnoxious but she's a pretty normal teen.  I'm more annoyed by the adults who put her in that position so soon after everything she'd been through.  (And she needed to be older.... they all did.)

Also really wish more would have developed in this first book.... some of what's coming (please tell me it's going to happen with how glaringly obvious it seems) really could have happened in this one.  I wish the pacing had been better and the book a little longer so that it all fit in one volume rather than dragging it into a series.

So after writing that bit ^^ I went looking.... And ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!

There are FOUR more novels plus THREE novellas AND a spinoff series.

Oh heck no.

Sorry, ain't nobody got time for that.

As far as I can tell (after reading all the most spoiler-y reviews I could find) books 2 and 4 are filler.  Books 3 and 5.... stuff happens, but I seriously DO NOT see why there needed to be that many books.

It really could have just been 1.... maybe 2.

(Also, parents should know that there's a major rape scene in a later book.... sorry for any spoilers there.  It doesn't seem to actually have a point other than, I suppose, how else does one draw a storyline out for 4 books more than it needed to be)

In the end it appears that everything works out how you expect it to from how much hinting there is in book 1.... and I'm perfectly fine knowing that without reading all the insanity in between.