Review: Eon by Alison Goodman

Eon (EON #1) by Alison Goodman.
Release Date: 2008
Page count: 430 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
Format: Paperback
Who I'd Recommend it To: People who grew up reading the Dragonkeeper series by Carole Wilkinson. Or people who just love high fantasy.
Rating: ★★★★ 

 Like the sound of this book? Buy it off of TBD!

Also Known As: Two Pearls of Wisdom, Eon: Rise of the Dragoneye, and Eon (All the same book just published with different publishers) Eon has been studying the ancient art of Dragon Magic for four years, hoping he'll be able to apprentice to one of the twelve energy dragons of good fortune. But he also has a dark secret. He is actually Eona, a sixteen-year-old girl who has been living a dangerous lie for the chance to become a Dragon-eye, the human link to an energy dragon's power. It is forbidden for females to practice the Dragon Magic and, if discovered, Eon faces a terrible death. After a dazzling sword ceremony, Eon's affinity with the twelve dragons catapults him into the treacherous world of the Imperial court, where he makes a powerful enemy, Lord Ido. As tension builds and Eon's desperate lie comes to light, readers won't be able to stop turning the pages..

Review...

I've always loved these type of stories. When I was growing up, I read Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson and absolutely adored it. Asian culture, mythology, and dragons have always interested me, so obviously I thought I would like this book. And, yes, as you can tell by the four stars I gave it, I definitely did enjoy it. 

The first half was interesting enough, sure, but it was the second half of the book that definitely took my interest and that's when I really got into it. I didn't want to put it down after I hit halfway. It was constant action and surprise, and everything kind of fell into place.

Eon, or should I say 'Eona', was a great, strong female character, though I found that it's quite hard to connect with her. I guess that was because she spent most of the book trying to hide the fact that she was a female. Despite that, she's a very well rounded character and extremely likable, although she is quite frustrating at times. What I especially liked about her character is that she's not your stereotypical strong female in literature. She's not a great fighter, she doesn't know how to handle a sword - but she's smart, and she uses that to her advantage. She also grows a lot throughout the book, which is of course fantastic.

All of the secondary characters were fantastic aswell, and extremely realistic and well developed. I'm excited to see where each character goes in Eona, especially Lady Dela, Ryko and Lord Ido.

I know that some people think the book is quite hard to get through and I can see why. It's quite heavy on the mythology and there is a bit of info dumping here and there, but I found that I could get through it quite easily. I adored the writing style and everything was written quite vividly. The world building is great, also, and I loved all the magic and the dragons. You can tell the author put a lot of research into Asian culture and mythology before writing this one.

Though I loved it, the book does have its faults and there's definitely room for improvement in the second one. And from what I've read, everyone seems to love Eona even more than they did this one, so it's safe to say I'm pretty damn excited (and I also ordered it straight after I finished this one. WOO.)

In short: It's great. If you like fantasy, intriguing characters, great plots and action sequences, this one is for you.