However, not only is Lee competing against Annie, but rumors are circulating that some of the royal family have survived and have dragons of their own. Their dragons are finally mature enough for them to compete for Firstrider, a position of power that can give Lee back a small part of what his family lost. Nine years later, a new generation of dragonriders is emerging, children selected and trained on merit, not bloodlines.
For too long the dragonriders held all the power while their people starved and lived in fear. What happens to the world after the dust from a revolution has settled?įriends Annie and Lee were children from very different circles when Atreus killed Lee’s father, dragonlord Leon Stormscourge, ending the uprising on the bloodiest day in Callipolis’ history. This gritty contemporary novel about an unlikable first-generation Mexican-American teen fails to deliver as a coming-of-age journey. An abrupt plot development involving self-harm and mental illness feels forced, as does a magically life-changing trip to Mexico in the third act. Sánchez’s prose is authentic, but it’s difficult to root for Julia, because she’s so contemptuous, judgmental, and unpleasant: “I do dislike most people and most things”-from “nosy” aunts, “idiot” cousins, and tacky quinceañera parties to even her “wild and slutty” best friend, Lorena, at least sometimes. In one of many overlong subplots, Julia starts a romance with a rich Evanston white boy, Connor, whom she meets at a used bookstore.
After secretly snooping through Olga’s room, Julia begins to suspect that Olga may have led a double life. Julia, on the other hand, hates living in her roach-infested apartment building in their predominantly Latinx Chicago neighborhood, and she doesn’t even try to live up to her Amá and Apá’s expectations that she behave like a proper Mexican young lady. After the death of her dutiful older sister, Olga, Julia must deal with grieving parents and the discovery that her sister was keeping secrets.įifteen-year-old Julia Reyes is nothing like her sister, “Saint Olga,” who was struck by a semi at age 22 and was always the family’s “perfect Mexican daughter”: contributing at home, attending community college, working at a doctor’s office, and helping their mother clean houses.
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