Customer Reviews

Eona: The Last Dragoneye

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, the book really does grab you. I couldn't put it down.

I was disappointed with the lack of development in Eona's character. Eona makes bad decisions and even when something goes down that isn't her fault, everyone blames her anyway - its not like she knew what would happen when she healed Ryko, but everyone blamed her for what was done to both him and the village they were in at the time. I expected her to be stronger, wiser, in this second book, but its like she learned nothing from the events from the first. Then though there was some sword play, and it was cool seeing her kick a little ass, there wasn't really any to speak of. Most of the fighting and sacrifices was all done by other people. She just kind of stood to the side and spoke on cue. It was just sad. She was like that in the first book but it was understandable given the situation, being thrust into this very new place and not understanding what was going on, but in this book I just expected a much stronger heroine, one that would communicate with others instead of keeping secrets as that did not work out so well for her in the first book, a heroine that I could stand behind, be proud of. But instead she was exactly the same and frankly, it was a bit embarrassing. By the end of it I just thought she was stupid.

And then the author decided that it would make perfect sense for Eona to develop romantic feelings for and even make out with Ido, the man who tried to RAPE her. Not that having feelings for the prince, Kygo, considering how many times he betrayed her trust, insulted her, and used her, made any more sense.

I won't be reading this book again, ever. These books are okay for maybe a little weekend escapism but I wouldn't recommend them for young, impressionable girls.

Eona is a hard book for me to review. Not only am I completely new to audio, Eona was such an epic conclusion to the Dragoneye series and a week after finishing I am still have trouble sorting my thoughts and feelings on the book.

My love for Eona that carried over from Eon dwindled slowly throughout the book. Eona's lies became like a cancer slowly eating away at me. She rarely does the right thing or make the right decision and she uses her friends to justify her own cruel lies. However, you can say she does it all to try to survive but who doesn't or can't trust Kygo our prince?

Eona's relationship with Ido the constant love vs. hate struggle interests me to no end, and in the final chapters of the book when she is forced to pick between Ido's selfish love or Kygo's chauvinistic brand it really is hard for the reader to know Eona's mind enough to predict an ending. Eona is after all a very unreliable character.

The book is violent and bloody with equal parts of action and downtime. Nancy Wu did such an AMAZING job with the narration of this book. I am not sure I would have finished it on paper. It's long, and in the years it took Goodman to finish the sequel it seems like most of the characters had changed into a different being. I didn't feel like I was picking up where we left of in Eon even though that is the exact point you pick up.

This doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book, or love the ending because I did, so very much. It just means Goodman and Wu both did an excellent job conveying the contemplation of the characters and still after a week I am contemplating their actions as well.

If you liked "Eon" and your eyes didn't glaze over every time you read about Eona uniting with her dragon, easing into her mind-sight, channeling her Hua and so forth, I don't see any reason for you to dislike this novel. I really don't.

I feel like every issue I had with the 1st book of this duology was successfully fixed or improved upon in this sequel.

"Eona," unlike its predecessor, has no info-dumping. Instead, it is a quest-type adventure in which Eona attempts to save her home country and in the process learn to control her newly acquired immense power.

It is also a very personal story. The time is no longer spent on extensive world-building, but on Eona's exploration of her power as both a Dragoneye and a woman.

Of course, everything is messy. With great power comes great responsibility - how much violence is justified in war? what is the rightful cause to use one's power against another person's will? who can be trusted with limitless access to power? and what can power do to a person who possesses it?

The romance story line is no less complicated - romantic relationships are convoluted by mistrust, fear of deception, power imbalances, questions of morality, loyalty and honor.

Every decision Eona has to make is ambiguous and difficult and requiring serious sacrifices, just the way I like them.

But the best part of the book for me was the fact that when I started it, I was sure it would simply be about saving the Empire of Celestial Dragons from Sethon, but it turned out to be much more than that, sort of like in "Shadowfever" (Note: no other similarities! So don't hold this comparison against me later on, ok?)

I am thoroughly impressed by this intelligent, complex and thoughtful story. Highly recommend it, unless, of course, you can't stand fantasy, dragons and heavy world building.

Night Owl Reviews

In the second book in the series, Eon becomes Eona, and things get frustrating for me as a reader.

Eona and Emperor Kygo fall in love (of course), but Eona has difficulty with this as she remembers Ido's attempted rapes. This was believable, but somehow this gets lost as Ido himself gets drawn into the love triangle. The romance was juvenile in the worst ways, unbelievable, and completely overwhelmed the plot of the book. I understand Goodman may have been using the love triangle as a metaphor, but it fell flat for me due to how unlikely it was and what jerks both Kygo and Ido were. Although I do appreciate that Goodman had Kygo act as a traditional Chinese emperor would have acted, it nonetheless makes him difficult to like for the modern reader and hard to see as an appropriate match for our forward-thinking heroine.

It was frustrating to see Eona had learned nothing from her previous experiences, making her seem slow-witted and certainly unworthy of being adviser to the Emperor.

The ending, at least, was satisfying.

What the author does so well: engaging the reader. I read this book while doing laundry, and other multi-tasking. I simply couldn't put it down! The story was so elaborate, so passionate, and so fast paced, it was hard to break away from the book!

One of the central themes of this story is the love triangle between Kygo, Ido, and Eona. I have to say- this triangle irritated me. Ido was obviously using Eona and she blatantly chose to not care. Somehow even though she had feelings with Kygo, which were met by equal passion, Eona still chose to "connect" to Ido. I was incredibly frustrated with Eona. She simply was a very flawed hero. Her morality choices seemed to worsen as the book went on. And although the author tried to redeem her at the end- it felt lacking. It isn't a good thing when I disagree with the heroine so much I hope she loses. I think that was the major fault of the story- the ending lacked a great deal. I felt that Eona really hadn't learned from her mistakes and would keep on making horrible choices.

However, this was an incredibly imaginative series. The author has a very special way of writing- as the reader, I feel as though I really am a part of the story. I can't wait to read other books by her!

I just finished reading this and I have to say, this was awful. The first book was much better and more compelling to read. The second book I had to force myself to read through it. Eona is a very annoying and weak character and there seems to be very little progress through out. Most of it is just Eona feeling afraid, angry, and insecure and her going through teenage angst. She wasn't the strong woman I liked in the first book and there was absolutely no character development of the new characters in this book. There were no exciting parts to read and when there were potentially good parts, the author did not bother to follow them. I would absolutely not recommend this book.

Also appears on The Screaming Nitpicker.

High Lord Sethon has declared himself Emperor after a coup, though the true Pearl Emperor Kygo has escaped. Eona, her identity as a woman revealed, Lady Dela, and islander rebel Ryko have also escaped and must find Kygo. He'll need Eona's power to take back his throne, but Eona can't control her power. Every time she tries to connect with her dragon, the ten dragons of the murdered Dragoneyes attack her. In need of training if Sethon is to be defeated, Eona and the resistance are forced to rescue Lord Ido, the murderous Rat Dragoneye and a power-hungry man. Torn in a million different directions by truth, power, loyalty, and more, Eona will have to make decisions that could save the empire or bring it to ruins.

Finding the words to describe this book is difficult, so I apologize if I ever seem muddled or nonsensical.

The mythos of the world Eona takes place in was carefully constructed and laid out in Eon--the twelve dragons and their relationships to the Dragoneyes, the purpose of the Imperial Pearl, and what the Dragoneyes can do with their power. In Eona, almost everything the reader knew is turned upside-down because nothing was what it seemed to be in the first book. All these reversals, especially in the relationships between the dragons and their Dragoneyes, make perfect sense in their execution and make the stakes even higher.

It takes a good while for the story to get to its climax, but intense battles are throughout and don't make it feel like there's a long wait. In the meantime, Eona and the other characters get some development. Some of the decisions Eona made in the book and the sheer amount of lying/secret-keeping she does boggled my poor mind. Seeing what could have been if Eona had a moral compass like Lord Ido's basically nonexistent one is very easy and she does some seriously bad things without thinking much on it. Considering her situation, where she's come from, and the problems she could cause herself by dwelling on it, I'm tenuously okay with that.

Romance takes a huge step up in this book, and it almost feels too sudden, like it's happening just because Eona is now known to be a woman. Eona's relationships with Kygo and Lord Ido are both refreshingly, wonderfully complex; while one is based on romantic feelings and troubled by trust issues, the other is mainly driven by attraction and power and is nowhere near healthy. For the first time in more than a few months, reading about love/lust-driven relationships sent a thrill through my system. I didn't even mind that there was a love triangle! I wish I could have seen more of Lady Dela and Ryko's relationship, though the latter put some serious effort into pushing Lady Dela away.

This book had me so enraptured that I had my head in it for four out of six classes for three days straight, unable to put it away because Eona and her sometimes-slow, sometimes-rapidly-paced story wouldn't let me. (Don't worry about any neglected schoolwork; my grades will be fine.) I was so mentally exhausted in the very best way upon finishing the book that I put my head on my desk and sat like that for twenty minutes. For about an hour after that, I was all smiley and floating. I know you don't want to hear about any of that, but I'm detailing it for a reason: I've never a reaction like this to any book in my life. Sobbing like a baby? Yes. This? No.

A day later, everything about this book is still bouncing around in my head, from the characters to the decisions Eona made that weren't always very ethical and were never easy. I felt that the preceding book Eon had its flaws, but Eona more than made up for them. There's no doubt I'll be coming back to this book (and maybe a few specific scenes) for a reread at a later time and enjoy the severe mental exhaustion all over again. This is a must for any fantasy or dragon fans looking for something new.

This book is not just a cool read. Mainly I want folks to be aware of the characters that are very unique to this series. I recommend it with hesitation. This is not a good book for younger teens who are not firm in their ideas of gender and male/female roles. This book is complicated, well written and ventures into adding endearing characters who are not perfect or cut from the same cloth. There are one couple in particular - a gay male who dresses in women's clothes and a male warrior who loves "her". Secrets and keeping them are discussed. Gender, sex, abuse, prostiution and many other mature themes are introduced. I would consider this more of an adult book than young adult.

When we left Eona at the end of Eon, her identity as a girl had just been revealed to just about everyone, she realized the Mirror Dragon is a female, Prince Kygo had been murdered, the ambitious Lord Ido had been healed of his evil ways, and she had joined up with the resistance to concoct a plan to oust Kygo's uncle Sethon, who had taken over the empire and was planning to do bad things. Got all that?

Turns out Kygo has NOT been murdered, and he's hiding out with the resistance. (Shocker.) During this novel, Eona is doing one of two things: lying or withholding the truth. She does this very often to Kygo, although she usually confesses the truth. Her real problem is this: there are lots of secrets she doesn't want anyone to know about, because she doesn't fully know what's going on, so she waits to tell people about them until she does know what's going on, by which time someone else has found out about them or she's been captured by Sethon.

Because of all the intricate unfolding plot lines, the book easily captured me. It was the characterization that irked me, and if the plot and setting hadn't been intriguing, this would have barely been a 3 star book. Eona is constantly making the kind of bad decisions that only someone with a serious moral gap can make, and her good behavior isn't enough to make me like her. She's not had an easy life and I get that. No one has taught her right from wrong, and other than loyalty to the Emperor, there is no moral code. She's usually lying about the plot lines that relate to her power: either Ido being able to control her, or the Emperor and the blood magic being able to control her, or her being able to control the people she's healed. Eona has all these lies going because she's afraid of what will happen if someone can control her through the dragon magic, but also because she doesn't want to lose her own power. She's got used to being treated like a boy, and now she's a girl again in a culture where women are less valued. Unfortunately, the way she goes about handling her situation doesn't endear her to the reader.

There's an awkward love triangle going on too. Eona is starting to like Kygo, even though he annoys her (but then, so does everyone else) but she's drawn to Ido too. Ido is powerful and he's teaching her to use her dragon power. The book very pointedly reminds the reader that Ido is only 24, even though the dragon magic has aged him and he looks and acts like a 40-something. Then Goodman introduces a strange plot twist, and Eona and Ido get a little frisky. Given that this man tried to rape her a couple of times in Eon and is constantly manipulating her, you'd think Eona wouldn't want to make out with him, but no. Doesn't faze her. I didn't like this particular plot device.

All in all, the actual progression of the plot was good, and the plot lines were well executed. Characterization was way too flawed and it felt like Goodman got carried away with making sure her heroine made mistakes before she saved the day. Loved the plot, but the author made me dislike the title character and I don't think that's what she was going for.

Eona finally made the move from being Eon to who she really is. She is the first Mirror Dragoneye in 500 years and the only hope of the resistance to stop the cruel Lord Ido and High Lord Sethon, who want's to be the next emporer. Together with a group of rebels, Ryko, Lady Dela and Kygo, the rightful Pearl Emporer, she will fight against the deadly enemy and his army. Together with her dragon Eona is willing to do anything to stop the terror and give Ryko the chance to become Emporer.
Will Eona succeed and what will happen with the Dragons?


In "Eona" Alison Goodman continues seamlessly what started so brilliantly in "Eon". Goodman has managed to write two equally engaging and fantastic books that make the Eon duology one of my favourite fantasy stories I ever read.

Once again Goodman's writing style transported me into the foreign and dangerous world that Eona lives in. Once again I felt like I was actually there instead of sitting at home with the book. And once again Goodman did it effortlessly, her writing style felt natural and so did the new plot developments. The story from "Eon" was continued without creating any unlogical or over the top situations.

In "Eona" you get a thrilling story, power plays, murderous intrigues, a beautiful love story and a power triangle. The book was thrilling, dramatic and emotional, I was never bored while reading and always excited to read on. The book is a thick one, 637 pages, but still I never felt like the story dragged on or that some parts of the story were superfluous.

I don't want to talk about what happens in "Eona" as regards content but I can promise you that I loved the direction the story took. I was a bit suprised by the love story and by what I like to call the power triangle, but both things worked perfectly. The one thing I would have loved to see was a beautiful epilogue about what Eona's future and her relationship with the man she loves looks like after the end. I love neat book endings and knowing exactly how the future for the love pair looks like, but I also know that such a neat, perfect happy ever after wouldn't have fit to the story and the world the book plays in. But you can bet that I created a beautiful HEA for Eona and her man in my mind.

After reading "Eon" and "Eona" I can't wait to read more fantasy novels by Alison Goodman. I will check out her older books and I'm excited for future projects.

cover
The cover looks great and breathtaking.

final appraisal
In "Eona" the story that started so amazingly in "Eon" ist masterfully continued and finished. Once again I loved being transported into Eona's world and enjoyed following her every step. This book is full of intrigues, power games, fights and even love - the story always stays exciting and interesting .
I would recommend this book and "Eon" to all readers who enjoy fantasy novels.