Monday, March 16, 2015

Review: Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman

From Goodreads: The kingdom of Goredd: a world where humans and dragons share life with an uneasy balance, and those few who are both human and dragon must hide the truth. Seraphina is one of these, part girl, part dragon, who is reluctantly drawn into the politics of her world. When war breaks out between the dragons and humans, she must travel the lands to find those like herself - for she has an inexplicable connection to all of them, and together they will be able to fight the dragons in powerful, magical ways. As Seraphina gathers this motley crew, she is pursued by humans who want to stop her. But the most terrifying is another half dragon, who can creep into people’s minds and take them over. Until now, Seraphina has kept her mind safe from intruders, but that also means she’s held back her own gift. It is time to make a choice: Cling to the safety of her old life, or embrace a powerful new destiny?


My Rating: Somewhere between 3 and 3.5 hearts 

Thoughts on the Novel: Having loved Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina, I had extremely high expectations for its sequel, Shadow Scale. Sadly, while I did like Shadow Scale, it just wasn’t as good as Seraphina.

Shadow Scale begins nicely with a prologue that recaps what happened in Seraphina. I found this quite helpful because almost three years after having read Seraphina, I couldn’t really recall what had happened in the novel. The plot of Shadow Scale then expands on the detailed worldbuilding of Seraphina by allowing the reader to now learn about the cultures of Goredd’s neighbours, the Ninysh, the Samsamese, and the Porphyrians, and see how they have interacted with the saarantrai and the ityasaari. 

Another thing that I enjoyed about Shadow Scale was that we get to meet the half-dragons from Seraphina’s garden of grotesques and find out their backstories. When Seraphina leaves Goredd, she’s quite excited by her task of trying to gather the ityasaari because she thinks that she’s going to find a group of people that she can automatically connect with. Over the course of her journey however, Seraphina comes to realize that just because the ityasaari have all been procreated from a dragon and a human, it doesn’t mean that she can assume that they’ve had experiences similar to hers.

Where Shadow Scale could have been improved was the relationship between Seraphina and previously introduced characters such as Kiggs, Glisselda, and Orma. The romance, for example, needed more closure. As well, since Seraphina hardly gets much page time with Kiggs, Glisselda, or Orma in Shadow Scale, I felt a distinct lack of emotional connection with these characters this time.

The plot of Shadow Scale also began to feel repetitive after awhile as it involved Seraphina finding a half-dragon, only to realize that Jannoula, the villain of the story, was mentally connected to them. Since Seraphina didn’t know how to fight Jannoula, she appeared to have little agency throughout the novel. This reached a climax with the deus ex machina ending. 

Shadow Scale was released on March 10, 2015 by Random House Children's Books. 

Comments About the Cover: I like it, but I prefer Seraphina’s cover. 

In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Random House) for free via NetGalley.

5 comments:

  1. I think everyone seems to be frustrated with the pacing of this book. I thought Seraphina was also a bit slow going but it didn't seem to bother me. I think I'm going to set aside more time than usual when I pick this one up to read.

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  2. I still need to read Seraphina after owning it for AGES. *groan* And I have promised myself I WOULD read it before Shadow Scale came out too #fail Well, I'm sorry that it didn't quite live up to it's predecessor for you :( The curse of the sequel strikes again...it's funny how seconds books rarely manage to live up to their predecessor. Lovely review all the same though^^

    Micheline @ Lunar Rainbows Reviews

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  3. Hmmm that's too bad, I can see myself having the same issues with this one you did, easily. I wish the other characters had gotten more time :/

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  4. "Shadow Scale begins nicely with a prologue that recaps what happened in Seraphina. I found this quite helpful because almost three years after having read Seraphina, I couldn’t really recall what had happened in the novel." -- pretty sure this had to have been some sort of requirement for Shadow Scale to be published because she would not be able to get away without a recap.

    "The plot of Shadow Scale then expands on the detailed worldbuilding of Seraphina by allowing the reader to now learn about the cultures of Goredd’s neighbours, the Ninysh, the Samsamese, and the Porphyrians, and see how they have interacted with the saarantrai and the ityasaari. " -- I really enjoyed that. Made it feel so epic to me. Aside from the fact that very little ... dangerous? super thrilling? was happening to Seraphina when the majority of this was happening - at least in the beginning.

    "Over the course of her journey however, Seraphina comes to realize that just because the ityasaari have all been procreated from a dragon and a human, it doesn’t mean that she can assume that they’ve had experiences similar to hers." -- right?! I loved this aspect of her character development. It feels perfect for someone of Seraphina's background and also a really perfect metaphor for being a teenager.

    "Where Shadow Scale could have been improved was the relationship between Seraphina and previously introduced characters such as Kiggs, Glisselda, and Orma. The romance, for example, needed more closure." -- Ah, yeah. I wish there was more romance, but I won't take issue with what was there. I do think that I lacked some of the previous connections, but I can't tell if that was the whole 'you-haven't-reread-Seraphina' bit or Shadow Scale itself. But I actually really enjoyed the ending for Kiggs, Glisselda, and Seraphina -- seemed rather inventive for YA to be so... open to such things. And Orma, well, it's sad but I liked that too, as another sort of metaphor for adolescence. I can see why you would want more closure though.

    "The plot of Shadow Scale also began to feel repetitive after awhile as it involved Seraphina finding a half-dragon, only to realize that Jannoula, the villain of the story, was mentally connected to them." -- oh, yeah, I didn't like the climax. Definitely thought it was deus ex machina as well and wished Seraphina had realized how to beat Jannoula earlier...

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  5. Huh, well that's a bit disappointing. BUT still makes me want to read Seraphina anyway!

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