Shadow Scale (Seraphina #2) by Rachel Hartman

Amy  

young adult, fantasy

In Shadow Scale, Seraphina decides to go off in search of other half dragon/half humans like herself.  It is not particularly clear why her uncle thinks this will help settle the ongoing dragon/human battles, but she sets off with grand plans.  She travels from place to place, meeting interesting people, seeing interesting things, and getting foiled at many turns.  Things don't go as planned and she has to abandon her plans frequently. However, it turns out that she will play a critical role in ending the wars.

I do realize that part of my problem was that this book arrived from the library at an inopportune time. I’d had it on hold for so long and then it came when I had several other novels in my possession that I wanted to read. It came when I had my first taste of real schoolwork for the first time in 28 years which stole lots of my pleasure-reading time. It came and it was much larger than I had anticipated and was a bit of a pain to lug around everywhere, so I left it behind in favor of my Kindle frequently.

However, I persevered and did finally finish this novel despite being tempted to leave it and never come back a couple times. Basically, it got really slow and boring a sometimes during the course of Seraphina’s neverending, seemingly pointless travels. I enjoyed the characters and the settings were often charming and creative. But, Rachel Hartman's storyline never pulled me in. The strategies of all the players were never clear and I ended up doing quite a bit of browsing to get through the slow parts. The ending was only partially satisfying. And, I really don't remember too much about the first novel in the series, Seraphina.  (I read it 20 months ago!) Perhaps, if I had, I might've felt more linked with this story.

So, I will give it 3 stars—my average rating for enjoying a book--but am tempted to give it 2-1/2. I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt due to my first few sentences of explanation and assume that I would have enjoyed it more if it had arrived from the library at the right time.