A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williamson

I was so pleased to have gotten this as an ARC to read, however I only got around to cracking it open on released week, and let me tell you I thought that I was going to be able to get you out a review on release week. I didn’t, but that isn’t the fault of the story. In fact I read nearly 80% of it on my flight back from our family vacation over new years and I was invested.

This is a story that has hope somehow creeping into a dark, and devastating story. This will scratch your dark academia itch with a secret-wartime government gang-pressed groups of young adults all blackmailed into helping their government. A main character that you know from the outset is an unreliable narrator and who’s character flaws make you just want to shake her, but she’s doing it all for the right reasons if in the absolutely worst way possible. I was so incredibly proud of the growth that you see in all of the characters. Folks who grew up in either in the worst conditions imaginable, or were made ignorant due to their placement in the post-dragon civil war caste system.

Is this about dragons? Yes. Is it set surrounding war time activities? Yes. Is it anything like Fourth Wing? No, this is infinitely darker and more political. It is gripping and has you rooting for characters. It has you yelling at others. It has you keeping mental calculus. The tension and backstabbing is rife, yet somehow the love for humanity and the desire to see a better life is there. The emotions and subtext will leave you continually feeling like you were sucker punched(and still wanting more). I think some of the dragons were my favorite characters, they were so incredibly real.

Also the entire goal of learning a secret dragon language? It scratched a wonderful itch in my brain. I majored in a second language in college, but it never came easy to me. I have always longed to understand languages like Viv does, so I loved getting to be in her head while she worked. It gave me such an appreciate for translators and the politics and minutia in learning about the different languages of dragons. Overall that slotted into the rest of the world building: detailed, but not overpowering. It felt familiar, the best blend of fantasy overset onto an alternate world.

Also, that last 20% of the book? It’s the reason when I was done traveling I hadn’t picked it up again until I knew I was ready. I knew it would be messy, and heartbreaking, and unputdownable. I wasn’t wrong. The highs and lows as we came to the end, they hit hard and then kept hitting. The lessons learned were hard ones for our characters, I think for our messy world today, this messy world that was just different enough was such a satisfying escape.

Looking to find A Language of Dragons? Here you go:

Bookshop.org ~ Libro.fm ~ Goodreads ~ Storygraph

This edition was provided to me as an advanced readers copy by NetGalley. All thoughts are my own. As a side note, some of the links to Bookshop.org or Libro.fm will either provide me or an indie bookshop I support a portion of the affiliate sales if you use them to buy a book I recommend!