R-r-read

1. The Sons of St. Olgo.  The Sons of St. Olgo were a really interesting addition to the story. Their actions were well-explained and the author did a great job of showing how, to them, segregating and killing dragons was totally justified.
2. The names.  I adored the titles and names Hartman gave to her characters. I mean really, how badass does "Ardmagar Comonot" sound?
3. The twist on dragon mythology.  The heart of the worldbuilding in this novel was obviously the twist on dragon mythology, and it is fantastically done. The best part, in my opinion, was dragon reactions to emotions. When overwhelmed with emotion, dragons completely panic at the loss of control they have over their own bodies. I also really loved the idea of dragons hoarding knowledge and books instead of gold--so clever!
4. The love story.  The love develops slowly, although it is heavily hinted at for the majority of the book. The interactions between the love interests felt sincere and I could see them happening in real life.

1. The garden.  I really didn't care for the garden of grotesques in Seraphina's head. The parts of the story where she spends time "tending to it" felt slow and a little boring. The whole thing felt more like a way to move the plot forward easily than it did an interesting ability of Seraphina's.

"We were all monsters and bastards, and we were all beautiful."

4/5 - I do not normally read high fantasy, so at times the book did get a little confusing. There is a glossary of terms and characters in the back of the book though, which helped a lot. Overall this was a really great book with fantastically developed characters and interesting mythology to back it up.