I loved this book. It feels like a steampunk crossed with a book about dragons crossed with a commentary on colonization. This YA novel centers on Anequs who is from a small island that has been relatively left alone by the people who have colonized their region. When she finds a dragon egg on her island the community gets together to teach the egg about their people. When it hatches it chooses Anequs to be its partner, and since the dragon riders of her village were killed, she has to go to the dragon training academy of the Anglish to learn how to use her dragon, Kasaqua’s magic.

Anequs is 16, but she is fiercely independent and she is not afraid to speak her mind. In her village, at 16, she is considered a woman and is happy to represent herself, her family, and her village to get the education she needs to use her dragons.

This book is an awesome YA book that isn’t a coming of age book. It’s a refreshing story to have a young woman who is firm in herself and what she believes in and is willing to fight for it. The fantasy aspects are fun, and it has an interesting critique on western culture. As Anequs is bisexual and polyamorous, it also has good queer representation.

I don’t think I’m the right audience for this book, so I’m DNFing. I love Indigenous stories but this one has so much technical knowledge about dragons and Native traditions, which I have a murky understanding of. I’m sure this book works better for others, and I appreciate the copy regardless! Just too long and fantasy-heavy for me.

I really enjoyed this one and will be recommending it to readers who enjoy books set as magical schools and/or dragons. It's also a great story for those looking to incorporate more indigenous authors into their reading.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath is an exceptional start to a new YA Fantasy series. The world-building was great and I loved the protagonist, Anequs, and the setting of the Academy. Also, DRAGONS!!!

This story follows Anequs, a teen girl, who lives on the remote island of Masquapaug, with her family and peoples. After Anequs finds an abandoned dragon egg, she brings it back to her village and they guard over it, keeping it safe. Once the baby dragon hatches, it chooses Anequs and they are bonded.

The people of the village are delighted. In a previous time, their society had many dragons and those prosperous times are still remembered well in song and story. After the baby dragon chooses Anequs, She becomes their only Nampeshiweisit; a person with a special relationship with dragons.

Unfortunately, there is no one left alive who remembers the old ways and can teach Anequs what she needs to know to safely raise and train the dragon. For that and other reasons, Anequs needs to enroll in a private academy, far away on the mainland, where she will be registered as, and learn to become, a dragoneer.

We follow Anequs as she and her dragon, Kasaqua, travel to the city and enroll in the Academy. It's Anequs first time living amongst the Anglish and it's jarring; definitely not the easiest transition for her. We get to meet the other students, as well as the Professors and get a front row seat to their classes and the inherent racism found there.

This story takes us through Anequs entire first year and leaves off in a great spot for the continuation of the story. I'm excited about the possibilities of the second book.

Blackgoose developed a lush and detailed world with this book. There was a lot of information given to the Reader involving the magic system, history and society's relationship to the dragons.

I tried not to get too bogged down in the details, because I could see how trying to remember every single thing could ruin this experience for some Readers. I trusted Blackgoose to be able to weave an impactful tale without me having to take notes while Anequs was at class. For me, it worked and I can see, as the series, continues, how things that seem foreign at the start as concepts, will just become old hat, the more you read in this world.

I was torn at the end on how to rate this one. It is very impressive in the scope and the world-building. Also, I enjoyed very much the intrigue as Anequs's presence at the Academy has the potential to shake up the social order. I also very much enjoyed the growth we see in Anequs as a character. She literally grew leaps and bounds over the course of this story.

However, it did have some pitfalls for me as well. For one, I felt it was a little too long and perhaps there were a few too many details, as far as the content of her classes went, etc. The pace was slow, particularly around the middle of the story and some of the social circumstances bordered on repetitive. I waxed and waned and ultimately decided, as recently as this morning, to give it a solid 4-star rating.

I did enjoy this one very much and I am definitely going to be picking up the next book. I would recommend this one to anyone who enjoys a lush YA Fantasy, with strong cultural influences and important social commentary.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Del Rey, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This is a grand debut and I look forward to reading more from Moniquill Blackgoose!

An exciting new take on dragon fantasy. A young indigenous woman finds and hatches a dragon egg. But the people who have colonized her people’s lands have different laws and a far different culture she needs to contend with in order to learn how to best handle her new dragon. The main character is wonderfully strong and independent and her dragon is delightful. In some glorification of the indigenous culture and the demonization of the colonizers is quite heavy handed, but the author also adds nuance to many of the characters feelings and beliefs on the various issues. I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series!

This story follows Anequs as she discovers a dragon egg and is then required by law to leave her native village with her dragon and study at an academy run by the Anglish colonizers.

Once she arrived, she was met with harsh resistance to her presence there. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and classism were all highly prevalent in Anglish society and permeated throughout Anequs’s school experience. They did not believe she belonged there and could not fathom that a savage like her could be so clever and proficient in her studies.

I absolutely loved the human characters in this book, and of course the baby dragon was my absolute favorite. I also really loved how this book approached bi/pansexuality and polyamory without creating a love triangle.

I am so very anxious to get my hands on the next installment of this series. It was a remarkable book and I highly recommend it!

Thank you so much to Random House and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Anequs is such a resilient character and admirable. The amount of hurdles and turmoil thrown at her are nerve-wracking and that sweet baby dragon is the only reason Anequs is subjected to this academy. Kasaqua made my heart melt every time she sprung on the page and needs to be protected at all costs!

To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose follows Anequs (a fifteen-year-old native) who has recently found and bonded to a dragon egg. Due to her nation's treaty with the Anglish colonizers, she must be formally trained and tested by the Anglish leading her to enroll in an Anglish school for dragoneers.

Blackgoose uses the fictional world that she crafted to discuss colonialism, racism, classism, sexism, and so much more. The world she built is deeply complex and unique, but eerily similar to the world we live in making it a piece of fantasy that I believe should be required reading by all.

This book is not very plot-heavy, but I never felt like I was missing anything instead it felt to me like a character study (of Anequs and the people she interacts with) and a development of this fantasy world.

I highly recommend this book if you enjoy: a unique magic system with clear rules, discussions of colonialism, character-driven novels, and interesting fantasy worlds.

This was such a fun fantasy story. The story was gripping, characters were well developed and overall this was one of the best fantasy books I’ve read in a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review,

There are no words (that I can think of) to accurately describe how much I loved and enjoyed this book. It may be the best fantasy book I've read this year so far. It was so delightfully original and fascinating, and the characters were so well written and seemed to jump off the page.

The only times I struggled with the writing was when it got really technical in explaining "skiltakraft" (essentially chemistry, with a fun dragon magic twist). It did, at these times, feel a little like reading a textbook, but when the plot picked back up, it more than made up for that.

However, a special shout out has to go to the writing done for the character of Sander, who is autistic-coded (but of course, in this universe, or even our universe's timeline equivalent, autism is/was not widely understood). As a neurodivergent person myself, the care that was taken in his character was so beautiful to see, and just seeing an autistic/neurodivergent character in a fantasy book to begin with was so heartening, especially since his traits were never used as comic relief or to make you feel pity for him.

Also, the hints of potential polyamory in the future? I am here for it!. Sequel when?

<i>*I received an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*</i>

3.5

This book has so many elements that are buzzwords to me. It’s a queer fantasy with dragons and a world that takes inspiration from European colonialism of the Americas. That being said, I think my expectations were skewed before I started and that hindered my enjoyment.

I firmly disagree with some of the reviews I’ve seen classifying this book as young adult. Yes it has a young female protagonist, and it is a coming of age story and set at a school, but the depth of worldbuilding and the meandering of the plot is very much in line with adult fantasy. I was over halfway through this book and still didn’t know what the actual plot of this story was, which isn’t something that typically happens in books targeted at teen audiences.

Once I shifted those expectations, I found myself immersed in a world that had such interesting takes on society. This story is set in an 1840s version of New England where Scandinavians are the ones who colonized the “New World”. We follow Anequs as she leaves her isolated island to learn to train her dragon according to Anglish customs/laws but she has no intention of conforming to their idea of civility. I enjoyed learning about this world, and comparing the in the world sciences, myths, history, etc. to what exists in the real world.

While I did find myself losing interest at times through the middle, the last 15% really picked up on larger world implications of Anequs having a dragon, and the book ended leaving me excited to see what else this world has to offer. I also gave up on the audiobook halfway through because I could not stand the narration, so that might have impacted my enjoyment. I’m also always here for a why-choose/polyamory solution to a love triangle, which I’m hoping to see more of in the sequel despite the romance subplot here being very much a small part of the narrative.

Overall, I think this is a really ambitious debut and I hope to see more people pick it up. I think the book I’ve read recently that this is most comparable to is Babel by R.F. Kuang, which is a book I should have loved on paper. They’re both historical fantasies that center a minority’s experience at the magical school of the colonizers and the skiltakraft and other in world science lessons called to mind the translation lectures of Babel.

Thank you to the Author, Publisher, and NetGalley for this wonderful ARC.

Wow! What a great story of magic, dragons, an indigenous polyamorous bisexual main character from a culture were being transgender is completely normal and accepted! Woo!, a mostly nonverbal genius best friend, lots of diversity. The book is def the first book in the series (thank goodness! Want more of the world), but it’s mostly world and character building and setup and so I hope there is more of an event in future books for the characters to conquer. Readers should know the book is not an action filled fantasy story at all. While I couldn’t put it down some parts dragged on and I did skim some parts. Overall, this is a great story of friendship and standing up for what’s right even if it’s not what is seen as proper by society. I really enjoyed and can’t wait for book 2. (Also can I please have a telepathic connected and joined at my hip dragon?)

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath is young adult Indigenous fantasy set in a world remarkably similar to ours, but with dragons. Fifteen year old Anequs, our main character, is a Masquapuag girl who finds herself bonded to the first Nampeshiwe dragon to be hatched on their land in generations, marking Anequs as the first Nampeshiweisit, or dragon companion, in recent memory. Her people are thrilled, but the Anglish, who conquered the land many years ago, have very specific ideas for how a dragon and her dragoneer should operate. In order to keep her dragon from being put to death as a feral, Anequs enrolls in a prestigious dragon academy on the mainland. Here, she is confronted for the first time with the nearly insurmountable differences between her people and the Anglish, who have so many unspoken rules about society and what makes a person civilized. Anequs must learn to navigate this new, baffling world, while also trying to learn everything she needs to know in order to bring her dragon home, and somehow managing to not lose herself and her heritage in the process.

I’m a sucker for a book about dragons, and anything dealing with academia has my immediate attention. Pair that with discourse on colonialism, beautiful depictions of Indigenous life, and a main character I can root for, and I’m sold. This book delivered all of those elements with great aplomb, along with social commentary that both fascinated and enraged. I loved that the world was essentially our own, with the setting similar to America at the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. However, in this version of the world, besides the fact that dragons existed, Christianity never rose to power. The Anglish are essentially Vikings, with their governmental setup and religion, though the names of the Norse gods have been very subtly changed. Subtle name and word alterations are a huge part of Blackgoose’s world building here. Our Freya and Odin are Fyra and Joden in their world. Witchcraft is witskraft. Algebra is aljabr, and geometry is anglereckoning. These little differences threw me at first, and felt unnecessary if the differences between this world and our own were so thinly veiled, but I gradually acclimated to them.

Anequs is a wonderful character, and I could have read about her relationship with Kasaqua, her dragon, forever. The dragons in this book all sounded beautiful, and I love that there were so many different breeds included, but Kasaqua definitely felt the most unique. I love how much time we got with her as a hatchling, and it was bittersweet witnessing her grow. And Anequs is such a self-assured, loyal, upstanding, brave person. I adored every scene set on her home island of Masquapuag, and I loved getting to learn so much about her culture.

It was the Anglish culture that I found distasteful. The emphasis on propriety and adhering to unspoken societal expectations was almost as tedious for me as it was for Anequs when she was among them. It was the amount of time spent on this culture, as well as the fact that Blackgoose could become very info-dumpy with her world building under the guise of the school setting, that had me putting the book down quite often. There were a couple of points where I bogged down enough to consider not picking the book back up, but I’m very glad that I stuck with it.

This is a book with a ton of representation, and none of it felt forced. The city in which Anequs attends school is a melting pot, and we see people of all races and religions, as well as the prejudice that sadly follows such diversity. Multiple sexualities are represented, though we see how those things are closeted out of fear in Anglish society while being accepted without question by the “nackie” (Native) society. And finally, we have some neurodivergent representation in the form of one of my favorite side characters, Sander, as well as the first time I’ve ever encountered fidgets in a fantasy novel. I thought those were a lovely touch.

I ended up very much enjoying To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, even though I felt it was a bit too long and involved too much info-dumping in the worldbuilding. This is such a unique story, and I’m thrilled that Indigenous fiction is coming more to the fore. I will be eagerly awaiting the sequel!

In an alternate timeline that isn't so dissimilar to ours, in the mid-1800s, Anequs is a young indigenous woman who happens to find a dragon egg laid on her people's island, after years of dragons not existing around there. The dragon attaches itself to her, and Anequs must go to Anglish society dragoneering school so that she can learn how to train her dragon (by shaping its breath.)

I loved this book, but I'll tell the truth, it is slow going and long. The chapters are thankfully short and direct, and I loved that the chapters' names even told the story. There are a lot of great characters here, whom I expect will be expanded on in the rest of the series. There's not a lot of subtleness when it comes to racism and condescension, but Anequs' responses and absolute non-care for becoming "civilized" made her a very fun character to read.

If you want a fantasy with dragons, written by an Indigenous author, that is both cozy and not cozy at the same time, and provides a whole kids coming of age at a fantasy-style school storyline, and you don't mind a slow-paced book, then I'd recommend this one!

Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine for the e-ARC.

A brilliantly stunning debut! This book follows an indigenous girl named Anequs who lives a peaceful life on her island until she is chosen by a dragon and must attend a prestigious Anglish dragon academy to learn how to become a proper dragoneer.

The world-building in this story is incredible! Dragoneers study to shape the breath of a dragon to aid in areas like mechanical engineering and chemistry.

I also adore Anequs's character. She is so fierce and passionate in her love for her dragon and her family.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5: Thank you to #NetGalley and Del Rey books for the opportunity to read this book and provide my honest review.

An indigenous and anti-colonialism coming of age story with excellent queer and neurodivergent representation in an academic setting? PLUS DRAGONS? Who wouldn't want to read this?!?!? What a debut! I can't wait for the rest of this series! I absolutely LOVE the main character Anequs and her dragon (they are witty, smart, strong, and full of integrity), but the cast of supporting characters are also pretty great. I am hoping we get more Liberty, Theod, and Sander in the next book...honestly, I wanted more of them in this one, which is why this wasn't a full 5-star read. I think the author had to spend time setting the stage for the series, so I'll forgive them for the lack of a deep-dive into the supporting characters. The author does a really nice job juxtaposing Masquapaug (where Anequs is from) with the mainland home of the Anglish colonizers, where the dragon academy is. There are aspects of the story that are very steampunk, which you wouldn't think fits with the story, but it does. Somehow, though this story is set in the 1800s, it feels historical and futuristic at the same time, but in a very balanced way. Though this is a YA fantasy novel, it really appeals to people of all ages. I sure hope the second book isn't too far behind!

Rating: 2.5
Though I expected this book to have some ignorant, hateful, bigotry, I didn't expect to basically just be that. There really wasn't much about the dragons. I personally found the constant bigoted comments to be exhausting and I'm kind of tired of these books only being about that, rather than focusing on the fantasy elements too. I can see why people would love these books, and maybe if I expected it, I would have liked the book more. But I don't want to read something expecting to be entertained, only to be angry instead. The insults were repetitive and it seemed like everything brought up about indenginous culture, only was to educate white people or to be picked apart and insulted.

I really enjoyed the premise of this book, and there was a lot of really interesting world building. Some of the story, especially at the beginning, were really slow or drug on. That said, I still loved all the representation in this book and loved learning the characters etc. I

I really had high hopes for the book but ended up not enjoying it. I need more from the story. All it felt like was a social commentary on injustice which I’m not against in books but I was hoping for more fantasy aspects.

Such an amazing way to frame the story of settler colonialism in North America, and how indigenous peoples negotiated modernization while working to maintain their traditions and ways of life. The world building is absolutely fascinating. It gives Shadow & Bone vibes with the various cultural influences, and I think Anequs is a brilliant choice for the POV. And the fact that all the dragons act like cats? YES, PLEASE.