Year of the Dragon

Eon

By Alison Goodman

Genre: Fantasy

What helps with a break up? A story about a girl's empowerment in a man-centered world.

Here's where we find Eon, actually Eona, a girl who has been training in magic and sword-work to become a chosen Dragoneye. In this world, Dragoneyes are based on the Chinese Zodiac – Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, etc. Females are forbidden to participate, and become, Dragoneyes, but that is exactly what Eon is training for. When her secret threatens to be revealed, she and the royal family are put into danger. She must find her own strength within her to stabilize the kingdom and prove she is just as capable.

Lately, due to the success of several books with many many pages, we've been seeing bigger and bigger books appear on the shelves. In all honesty, I think this one could have been 100 or 200 pages less. A bigger book doesn't mean more stuff, it just means that the author couldn't figure out a way to say what they wanted to say in a more succinct and precise way. At least, that's my view. This book is close to 600 pages, I put it down in the middle and had to wait several weeks before finishing it off because of the length.

Other than it's size, I loved it. I bought it originally because there's a Tamora Pierce review on the front. Sucker, I know. It combines two things I love – Asian culture and girl-dresses-up-as-boy-to-train-for-man's-job-and-becomes-a-legend (see “Song of the Lioness Quartet” by Tamora Pierce). If you love those books where girls strive for excellence in a very human way, I would recommend this book. I had the “twist” figured out midway through the book, so it was not as big of a surprise as Goodman might have though, but it might fool someone else. Ninja meets girl. Excellent start of a series for her and I cannot wait for Eona, the sequel.

4.5/5 STARS 

Use in the classroom:
This is a great novel for perseverance and girl-power. Because of its size, I would not recommend this as a classroom novel, nor a literacy group novel. An individual study and a fast reader would be its best use or in the classroom library.