Dragon Untameable

It feels so good to be back in the kingdom of Alveria again!
This time, Kaelan and Lasaro are the reigning Queen and King and their kingdom is under attack, casting the whole of Alveria in darkness and one young orphan girl, Laini, is being blamed for it. What follows is a trip back to the Akademy and there is an endless intrigue of magic, realms and the fight to uphold good from evil.
Thank you Netgalley for the eARC. This is yet another story where the underdog gets her day and I can't wait to see Laini grow into her full power.

I really liked being back in the Dragon world of Alveria. The first series set in this world was a lot of fun to read and I loved those characters, many are back in this series.

Laini is a great character, though I didn't really care for her passive personality at the start of the book. The type to apologize to people for everything, for example at the start of the book it's a birthday party for a young child and while Laini is still doing work, cleaning and getting more refreshments for the children, the rest of the staff who are supposed to be working are standing chatting and when she asks for their help they snap at her and she apologizes for asking. I think I don't like that in people because I used to be that way and was treated like a doormat. But Laini grew on me. She became less passive, I like that she grew and became less passive.

Tyr. strange name aside, I really liked his character. His motivations, his reservations. They seemed genuine. I like when characters are conflicted. It gives them complexity. I liked how his past and his secrets were revealed. As readers, we find out before everybody else, I am not sure if I would have preferred to find out before, or with everybody else. On one hand, it makes the impact of the reveal to everybody else less of a shock, but on the other, we get to understand more about him as a character if we already know.

The other characters in the Untamable class, Thea and Lokari. Thea has the dragon power to make sonic booms and Lokari can cast illusions. Both of these powers, along with Laini's, seem to be unique to those characters. They are the polar opposite to Laini, outgoing, outspoken and very sure of themselves despite not being in full control of their powers. But I have a theory about who they are in the grand scheme of the series, based on the synopsis of the sequel.

I really like this book, and I love that all of Richardson's books feature Dragons. There is a serious lacking of Dragons in Fantasy these days. I suppose most people think that nothing new can be done, but Richardson proves that wrong. This is the fifth book I have read by her, and they are all amazing. Highly recommend you check any of her books out.