EON: Dragoneye Reborn by Allison Goodman

EON: Dragoneye Reborn by Allison Goodman
Release Date: 12/26/08
Publisher: Viking Press
Pages: 536
Grade: B

I really hadn't planned on reading this story, but, the library received the second book from the Junior Library Guild. Now, I hate to have parts of a series. To me it seems pointless to only have the conclusion of this story...So I jumped on Amazon and ordered this, the first book.

Once it arrived, I opened it up and read the first couple of pages and was hooked...so much for not planning to read this book.

It's the story of an Asian-like country, much like China or Japan say 500 years ago, where dragons still exist. Only the dragons aren't flesh and blood more like pure energy. These dragons choose and "link" with a human boy. These boys go through a 12 year apprenticeship, and then when they ascend to the title of Master, and another apprentice will be chosen. These masters are called Dragoneyes. These Dragoneyes can call upon their dragon to harness their energy and use it for the good of the people. Eon is one of the boys training to hopefully by chosen by the next dragon as an apprentice. One problem, all the people training to be chose as apprentices are 11 year old boys, Eon is actually a 16 year old girl!

This story moves fast and there is a lot going on. The author did not want to make this a "Japanese" or "Chinese" story, so she researched both, culturally, then tweaked it to make it fit her fictional country...You could feel that the basis was Asian, but it was only implied. 

Eon/a was pretty dense in parts...I was able to predict a lot of the big plot points. It may have been predictable in some areas, but that didn't detract from the writing or the story's style. The author was very detailed in her descriptions, but not to the point of boredom, she had a fine balance...enough to envision what she was trying to convey, but no unnecessary minutia.

I'm thankful that I didn't start EON until the second book Eona came out, because the author left you with quite a cliffhanger...I only have to wait until I get to work tomorrow to pick up where EON leaves off. So glad I didn't have to wait from 2008 when EON was written until now to find out what happens!