“Dreams are the fire that warms the soul.
Evie refuses to talk about why she needed an operation. Saying it out loud would hurt too much.
Instead, she focuses on carving the piece of her rib that the doctors removed into a tiny dragon – a dragon that comes to life at night, helping her to heal. Finally, she can feel safe again.
But Evie’s dragon – dreams are becoming more and more powerful, and soon the dragon is calling for revenge…”
I finished reading The Bone Dragon last night. I read the second half of the book in one go.
I loved the character of Evie. Sometimes she feels sorry for herself but she has been through a lot so that’s okay. I found the story a bit slow to start off with but I felt a connection with Evie, I wanted to look after her and make sure that she was okay and that for once, something was fair for her so I persevered.
I really enjoyed the middle of the book. I love Evie’s relationship with Uncle Ben and I found her ‘adventures’ with the dragon an interesting addition to the story. I also really liked the heart to heart that Evie has with Phee. I was so looking forward to the moment that Evie opened up to her best friends, and finally told them the truth about her past, stopped feeling ashamed (not that she has anything to feel ashamed about) about it and just open up, a little like she is doing with Ms Winters, but that never comes. Phee pushes a couple of times and Evie tells her ‘not now’ but she never actually gets around to it and I was a bit disappointed by that. The horses in the thunderstorm seem like such a big thing as well, but again it leads no where.
I did start to become a little worried about Amy’s character at one point, she seemed to be worrying obsessively and the way that Evie describes Fiona cleaning up after an incident seems to echo Amy’s behaviour a little, but it was brushed over as it was just Amy being Amy. There seemed to be something wrong and made me feel that maybe Paul should have spoken to her about getting help herself.
Uncle Ben and Paul are up to this big secret every week, Uncle Ben thinks they should tell Evie but not Amy. Does it have something to do with Evie’s biological Grandparents and revenge? No, they’re trying to catch some vandals. That was the second biggest disappointment I had with the book. It built it up to be some huge secret and yes, it’s sad that there were vandals in the cemetry but that’s not really anything to do with Evie’s story and Evie’s revenge. It felt very anticlimactic.
The biggest anticlimax of the book was the finale. I was looking forward to Evie being able to move on with her life, coming to terms with her past and moving on from it postively with her friends and I wanted to see Ms Winters’ relationship with Uncle Ben. I wanted to know if they did know eachother before like it seemed or if there was something else there but instead we got an implication that Evie may have murdered her Grandparents but has no recollection of it. I was just a little disappointed that the story had opened all these sub plots and never closed them off. What happened with Phee’s parents? What happened in the kitchen at Evie’s grandparents’ house? Why did Sonny act like that to Evie?
Despite the fact that this post does seem quite negative, I loved the character of Ms Winters and Uncle Ben. I loved how careful Amy was with Evie but that she gave her some freedom as well, despite the fact that it worried her. I liked the way that Evie was beginning to open up to her friends and I love that she got some peace in the end. I loved the dragon. the idea that there is someone there looking out for you.
Overall, I’d give the book a 6/10
Enjoy a snapshot of Boots Cat and me finishing off the book last night. He was less enthusiastic.
I am late posting the link to this week’s spotify writing playlist so if you want to hear what I’m listening to as I write this week, click here.
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