I loved this book so much! Jessica Day George sets up a whole world and has dragons inhabit it. Creel (best name ever) is a heroine that kids will cheer for and her friendships with the dragons and her fight to keep them safe was heart warming. 

 

"Dragon Slippers" has Creel dealing with the death of her mother which has her and her brother living with their aunt and uncle. Like many fairytale relatives, Creel's aunt kind of sucks. She decides that the only way that the family will be able to live is if Creel catches the eye of a knight or lord after he saves her from a dragon. Problem is that there doesn't seem to be any dragons around. Creel's aunt decides to just make her stay in a cave (that a dragon used to live) with the hope that is enough to entice someone. Too bad though a dragon really does live in the cave and after Creel's relatives leave her there to be eaten, she is taken inside and gets to meet a dragon. They come to an arrangement and she ends up being let go with some shoes that she loves and is determined to make her way to the King's Seat in order to get a job working as a seamstress. Along the way Creel meets more dragons.

 

Creel was hilarious. I loved her up front saying she's not special, she can't spin straw into gold and isn't fair to look upon (subtle shade being thrown at the girl in Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White) but she does know how to sew. Her traveling to the King's Seat is fraught with danger and she is saved by another dragon (Shardas) when some bandits seem hell-bent on assaulting and stealing from her. Creel eventually gets to the King's Seat and realizes her working in a store for someone else isn't all it's cracked up to be. She meets one princes, a princess, and makes a ton of new friends. She also realizes that first impressions of people can be wrong and cause damage down the line. She doesn't know what the slippers do and it is odd at first that no dragon wants to tell Creel about them, but we know that they are special in some way. When it is eventually revealed why the slippers are so special and what they do I thought it was a wonderful reveal. 

 

I loved the dragons in this one and how all of them collect certain things (like shoes, glass windows, dogs) and laughed at all of them throwing shade about hoarding gold (who would want to do that?)

 

The secondary characters such as Luka (one of the princes) and some of her fellow shop assistants shine. I thought there were some humorous bits and nothing too scandalous. I also think that there are some great villains in this one (no spoilers) that will have everyone hollering for their downfall.

The writing was really good. Nothing too complicated that would confuse children and it held my interest as an adult. I also loved how Creel realizes that the history that was told about dragons and one of the founders of the kingdom was based on a lie. I do think the flow gets a bit funky in the end, it just seemed at a certain point the book was in a holding pattern and nothing was happening. 

 

The world building was great. We can imagine the kingdom, the warring families, and where the dragons that Creel meets are located.

The ending was so good and I was happy that I got an excerpt to read from "Dragon Slippers #2."

 

 

 

I love the Buffy film, and Legally Blonde, because they take young women with girly interests and use those to literally and metaphorically kick ass. The heroine here is a talented seamstress, in a world where dressmaking is entirely manual labor. While I enjoy a story about a girl taking up a sword to fight a dragon, a story in which a girl makes a deal with a dragon is even better. And also, it reminds me of Dealing with Dragons.

Brilliant.

Library copy

 

Hard to review. I finished it yesterday but I was undecided how to rate it. Today, with my thoughts clearer, I decided for a 2 stars.

I enjoyed the first part of the book. The author Jessica Day says in a note that she loves Patricia Wrede and Robin McKinley. I am not very familiar with RM, but PW is one of my favorite fantasy books. It is easy to sense her inspiration in PW; Feniul and Shardas could possibly have been friends with Kazul from The Enchanted Forest. Talking dragons, wrongly mistaken as ferocious beasts, when in all, they are intelligent creatures who enjoy the company of clever humans. The first part is by far the best, when the reader is introduced to this dragons (and their funny hobbies) and one can't help but envy Creel, who is just a common girl that meets them and befriends them.

When she stars working as a dressmaker, the story declines a little bit. No doubt her talent is fantastic, and she meets interesting people, like the crazy Princess Amalia, Prince Luca, Tobin, and the girls that work in the same shop. But there is barely a scene with Shardas, and Creel is not a very good MC. To be honest, she is not bad, but she is far from being a kindred spirit.

The last part was a bit tedious. True, there is finally a battle, but the use of the slippers was dumb, and Creel cries to much for my taste. Some revelations were "mmm, ok, fine, whatever" for me.

Do you ever read a book by a "new-to-you" author and think, "where has this person been all my life?!" Well, that is how I felt about Jessica Day George as I read Dragon Slippers. I have seen reviews of her more recent titles but wasn't really driven to pick them up (who knows why?), and now I can't wait to get my hands on every book she's ever written. Imagine my excitement when I discovered there are actually sequels to this book, as well!Yes, that's just how much I enjoyed Dragon Slippers. It is definitely one of my favorite reads so far this year--perhaps even since I have been reading. I honestly loved everything about this story: the characters, the plot, the dialogues, the fictional world George created... I actually finished this book a few days ago but have really been savoring it mentally before writing this review. Lately I have felt my reviews have become stagnant and I haven't always felt inspired when I write them, but this one just poured right out of me. Jessica Day George has really taken the meaning of fairytale, dusted it off, and given it a new shine. There were so many scenes and quips that made me smile or laugh out loud, making this book a true pleasure to simply get lost in. Indeed, just reading the excerpt on the back cover was enough to tell me I was going to enjoy reading Dragon Slippers.I often compare how I enjoy books now to how I might have reacted to them when I was younger, and this is one of those books that I know I would have read over and over again. Maybe I just didn't have as much exposure to the right books when I was a young reader growing up, but I often feel that the selection today is quite a bit richer than it was when I was little. Thank goodness I can still appreciate wonderful books such as this one even now, and I imagine I will for the rest of my life. If anything I've said in this review has given you cause to think you might like to pick this book up, trust me, you definitely want to and should grab a copy as soon as you possibly can.

Enjoyed this trilogy. Fun quick read.