Monday, March 3, 2008

Never Thought I'd See the Day

I love to read books, as it is obvious from my previous entries and the whole subject of this blog. And there are almost no books that I would quit reading in the middle because of their worthlessness.

Notice the word "almost." That wouldn't be there before I started Donita K. Paul's DragonSpell.

The book was so terrible that I stopped reading it in the middle of the book. The story isn't very good, the author is not a good writer, and the only appealing part of the book is the front cover.

The story is about a girl named Kale, who finds a dragon egg and is sent to the center of the country she lives in. She has to deliver the dragon egg and figure out what to do with it. But she gets sidetracked from her quest, and then is told by people from the center to not go there. It is not bad yet, but read on.

There are so many characters and weird words that it gets confusing to the point of ridiculous. What is an o'rant? Who is Paladin? What are the seven low races, and what is their difference from the seven high races? What in Wulder's name (by the way, who is he?) happened to the people that were sent to help Kale but were lost on the quest, or were they even lost?

Is this confusing to you? If your answer is yes, don't read the book. It is full of several characters with weird names and weird roles, characters who disappear and never show up, and weird species (o'rants, emerlindians, mariones, grawligs, etc.) And Donita K. Paul cannot write. It is like reading a novel by a teenager who thinks she can be like Tolkien or Shannara author Terry Brooks. Most good authors can do good descriptions. Paul thinks she can, and tries to, but can't. She describes a cup of tea at one point of the story, and it is ridiculously boring.

One of the things I despise in most books is when one author tries to copy another. Reading DragonSpell is like reading Eragon, by Christopher Paolini, but worse. Most of the themes are the same. A mind-link with dragons. Dragons cannot be owned, only befriended. Try to block your mind so others can't read it. You almost expect to have Saphira, the dragon from Paolini's novels, appear. It is like a terrible rendition of the Inheritance Cycle. Don't get me wrong, Paolini is a great author, and his stories are really good. Not so for Paul.

I never thought I'd see the day where I would actually quit reading a book in the middle. But after reading a boring 100 pages of DragonSpell, I couldn't stand 200 more. I'm sorry, Donita K. Paul, but you can't write.

Grade: 2

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