My Review of Rogue (Talon, #2) by Julie Kagawa
Information from Goodreads:
From the limitless imagination of bestselling author Julie Kagawa comes the next fantastic adventure in the Talon Saga.
Deserter. Traitor. Rogue.
Ember Hill left the dragon organization Talon to take her chances with rebel dragon Cobalt and his crew of rogues. But Ember can’t forget the sacrifice made for her by the human boy who could have killed her—Garret Xavier Sebastian, a soldier of the dragonslaying Order of St. George, the boy who saved her from a Talon assassin, knowing that by doing so, he’d signed his own death warrant.
Determined to save Garret from execution, Ember must convince Cobalt to help her break into the Order’s headquarters. With assassins after them and Ember’s own brother helping Talon with the hunt, the rogues find an unexpected ally in Garret and a new perspective on the underground battle between Talon and St. George.
A reckoning is brewing and the secrets hidden by both sides are shocking and deadly. Soon Ember must decide: Should she retreat to fight another day…or start an all-out war?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23168406-rogue
AudiobookPublished April 28th 2015 by Blackstone Audio, Inc.
My Rating: 3 stars
TIME OUT! Please read this first:
I have not written my review for Talon (Talon, #1) and while this does not contain spoilers for book 2 (at least I don’t think so), this is a spoiler if you haven’t read book one.
My Review of Rogue (Talon, #2) by Julie Kagawa
3 stars (though maybe 3.5…oh I don’t know…)
3/5 stars
First I want to remind folks, as a booktuber has reminded me (well not directly but through her videos), that 3 stars is not bad. In fact, I like to hover my pointer over the stars so the phrases “I liked it”, “really liked it”, “it was amazing”, among others, pop up.
And I liked this book, but I did not find it amazing nor did I really like it. My hesitation over rating exists because this is a YA so a lot of what annoyed me is largely do to with the genre this fits, if you ask me. That said, love triangles are not a YA genre necessity and this story has a love triangle we first met in Talon, book 1. It’s just that this second book feels like it’s focusing so much more on the love triangle than I can appreciate. And I don’t like love triangles to start with.
What keeps me reading (listening in audio format) this series is because it’s about dragons. The idea of dragons being able to take human form is super cool and new to me. It keeps me coming back. But beyond that the story isn’t the most original, I find it predictable in a lot of ways. This second book, IMHO, was not as good as the first and again, I’m blaming the love triangle. Although there are a lot of cliches and tropes at work here. Also, one of the main characters, Ember, is annoying me but I don’t hate her.
So all in all, it’s the tropes/thropes that have me frustrated with this second book (especially). I’m also not digging the whole this guy’s actually really old – clearly so he can be given an extensive, experienced background – meanwhile there’s just something about the teenager…not sure the author was paying attention to this but it’s kind of creepy.
This book had me questioning my interest in this series, maybe it’s just not for me after all. Maybe starting book two immediately following book one was a bad idea, maybe I needed a break from this story. Do I even want to listen to book three or should I just listen/read something else in between? Book one was on my TBR for a long time, until I found it as part of Audible’s new Plus Catalog, meaning it’s a free perk of my membership. Would I have read it were it not free? Yes. Would I have picked up book two if I had to pay for it? Probably. Would I buy book three if I had to? Hm…maybe…maybe not?
I did find the ending to be satisfying. Don’t get me wrong, there are parts of the story that raise my interest and keep me holding on. With that in mind, yeah I’ll keep reading/listening. I really do want to know what’s going to happen. 😀
Would I recommend this? It depends. Do you like YA cliches? Do you like love triangles? Then yes I would recommend this. Do you like/love dragons? Do read. Do you like dragons but absolutely can’t stand YA and all things YA? Don’t read this. Do you love dragons and think you can wade through what you don’t like in the details to get to the interesting bits of a story about dragons among us? Then you should check this out. I’ll probably go right ahead with book three, crossing my fingers it’s better than two.
Have you heard of this book or series? What did you think? Please don’t spoil anything about the rest of the series please. 🙂 Let’s discuss. Did you love it? Hate it? In the middle with me? As I mentioned in the review I’m going to start listening to book 3, Soldier, right away. The title has me nervous because the “soldier” is not my favorite character. (Do I have a favorite…?) Do you have a favorite?
Maybe you’ve heard of the author, Julie Kagawa, but not the Talon series? Feel free to share your thoughts on her as an author as well. I have added another of her books, The Iron King (The Iron Fey, #1), to my TBR and will continue to follow her work.
Let me know what you think!
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Thank you for your time and interest!
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P.S. This summer I shared a comment on another blog that was in disagreement with that blogger’s thoughts. Maybe I was wrong to go on bashing a book they professed to love, maybe I should have kept my thoughts to myself (if you don’t have anything nice to say…). Maybe I exhibited poor etiquette and it was simply wrong time, wrong place. But I want you to know that I respect your opinion on books I’ve read even if it’s different than mine. (If I don’t respect it, I’ll be sure to let you know. 😉 ) I encourage you to share when you love a book I don’t or can’t stand a book I love. Let’s just be respectful of each other okay? No nastiness towards each other, meaning go ahead and vent about the book but not the author or me. (I don’t think I have to amend this more do I?) That’s all I ask. It’s not personal. And please do give me your list of reasons, perhaps we can engage in some discussion. After all, if all you say is that book was crap, I’m going to want a reason or two.