Aaron's Reviews > Dragon Keeper

This is a really nice book - in the beginning.

The idea of everything is amazingly old, and yet so fresh. The way the author portrays things isn't so special, and yet you really do end up feeling connected to the characters - sometimes.

I guessed a lot of the plots pretty much before they'd started. I guess after a month or so of reading the pretty much unpredictable (for me, anyways) HP series I am ready for a lot of things. I guessed that (view spoiler)[the dragon stone was an egg (hide spoiler)] even when Ping found it in the dragon pit.

I felt personally that the end was unsatisfying, simply because I'd guessed everything before it happened. The things I hadn't guessed seemed to have been made up on the spot and difficult to comprehend, and though the book ended as if to say "That part's over, now for the next", I didn't really feel as though many loose ends had been tied up. As I was reading I was simply stacking up little mysteries, such as the Emporer biting his fingernails being mentioned more than once. Unless I just missed the cause of this in a moment of haste, or failed to read between the lines when the reason was indicated, I couldn't figure out why this was so. As for a lot of the other little things in the book, I thought the same.

But through and through the book, reading it until the last few pages, I really thought this was a nice, heart-warming tale. Gruesome in some parts, and some things unexpected apart from the author's want to make everything predictable due to Ping's abilities, I loved it. I love reading about different people's take on dragons especially, but unicorns, pegasus, pheonixes etc. and this Chinese Dragon Keeper take on it all was an interesting and enjoyable read.

Overall I recommend this, for the beginning and middle. I don't doubt the next book will be great as well, and I can't wait to read it!