Dragonhaven Mass Market Paperback – September 30, 2008

About a page and a half into Dragonhaven, I put the book down and thought to myself, "She can't really keep up this annoying first person narration the whole book, can she?" When I think of Robin McKinley, I think of measured, deeply beautiful, polished prose - with a kind of intense, crystalline quality that has always lent itself well to the fairy-tale aspect of her stories. But Dragonhaven is written in the slangy, talky patter of its contemporary teenage narrator, Jake Mendoza. And she really does keep it up the whole way through.I did eventually grow to like it (McKinley is a wonderful writer, after all, even if this isn't her usual style), but the depth and beauty of the story seems to peek through the clutter of language, rather than channel directly to the reader through the written word. Jake narrates like somebody who is talking a mile a minute and can't stop to catch his breath, let alone go back through to edit and clarify.The story falls into the popular urban fantasy genre - a recognizable world of today that is subtly skewed by the addition of some fantastical element, in this case the existence of dragons. Jake lives on the only dragon preserve in America, at an institute in the park dedicated to the study of dragons. One day, seemingly by chance, he finds a dragon dying in the woods - a mother dragon killed by a poacher just as she was giving birth. All but one of her baby dragons are dead, as is the man who killed her. Jake, still trying to cope with the loss of his own mother, looks into the dragon's eye as she is dying and is so moved by what he sees there that he decides to do what he can to save the last of the dragon's litter.The rest of the book is about raising a baby dragon. It's about the bureaucratic mess caused at the park by the death of the poacher, and the practical and philosophical consequences of Jake's determination to save the baby dragon. It's the kind of story that would be impossibly dull if it weren't so magical, and in this case the breathless pace of the narration counterbalances the steady, grim menace of the government and the long, slow struggle to keep the baby dragon alive. It always feels like a lot is happening, like events are just galloping by, even though there's no real action to speak of.Things definitely get strange when it comes time for the baby dragon to meet her own kind, but that part of the story is too much fun to spoil.I really enjoyed Dragonhaven, but it didn't move me the way that some of McKinley's other books have (The Blue Sword, Beauty, Sunshine). I'd give it three and a half stars if I could, and I'm rounding up out of a sense of loyalty.

When I look down the comment section for this book, I think I know why there are so many people who didn't like this book. Its because its not a "Robin McKinley" book, as in, its not written in her usual, enchanting style. But that doesn't make it a bad book. I found it funny and engaging!The story is about a boy obsessed with dragons, mostly because he grew up around people who were obsessed with dragons, who comes across a dying mother dragon and her . . . clutch? litter? . . . what's the proper term for a group of baby dragons? Normally I would say clutch, which is the term you would use for reptiles and birds, but the dragons in this universe are marsupials. You read right, Robin McKinley has done it again. The thing I really love about her books is the way she takes a theme, say dragons, or pegasi, or your average Beauty and the Beast narrative, and changes it a little so that the story becomes new and refreshing. Marsupials, who would have thought it!But I digress, and that's the other thing I like about this book, the completely disorganized writing style. After our main character takes in the last surviving baby dragon from the . . . clutch/litter . . ., determined to keep it alive, his whole thought process goes out the window and the book becomes a mess of tangled plot threads until it reaches semi coherency at the end. In most books this would be a major problem, but somehow McKinley pulls this off well because there are reasons WHY Jake is disorganized. First, HE IS A TEENAGE BOY. Second being around dragons give people headaches, I wont explain why because I want you to read the book, but if I had a perpetual migraine that NEVER GOES AWAY, my thoughts may be a little disorganized too. And finally, Jake, our cute little teenage hero, becomes a middle aged mom overnight. He changes his whole life around the needs and whims of the baby dragon, like a lot of moms do, and I think the sudden change is hilarious!In any case, if you like Robin McKinley's masterful way with words this book may not be for you. But, if you love the way Robin McKinley takes boring old tropes and make them her own, you might want to pick Dragon Haven up. Just don't expect a cohesive plot line till the end of the book.

I wanted to give this 4 stars because it is by Robin McKinley, but I just couldn't because the teenage boy prose style was a continual barrier between me and the world of the story. I really enjoyed the way McKinley used the dragon reserve to highlight issues of species conservation versus human rights, but I couldn't immerse myself in the book the way I do in her other works because Jake's voice was just too dominant. I wasn't sure that a teenager would be quite that over-articulate anyway, and the constant asides and parentheses just annoyed me.I would recommend reading an extract from this book before buying it, to see if the style suits you. The characters, story and themes are all good as you would expect and deserve 4 stars (because even with a different narrator, this book still would not be Deerskin or The Blue Sword :-))I've lent my copy to a friend, and shan't chase her if it doesn't come back to me. I'd give it another try, but am not sure I'll finish it a second time ... we'll see.

Smokehill National Park in the U.S. is dedicated to protecting dragons, which are an endangered species, but the visitors who come to the park never see the dragons. The park is staffed by dedicated scientists and wardens, but they don't know how many dragons they have or where they can be found. All this changes when Jake, the director's son, inadvertently adopts a new born dragon and tries to raise her. Jake's struggle to keep her hidden, to understand dragon biology and to make sure she is raised to be a proper dragon is funny and touching. He and Lois' inevitible contact with other dragons is the stuff dragon dreams are made of. McKinley is a wonderful writer and this book, which is aimed at young adults, is meant for any reader fascinated by these awesome creatures.

Although a lovely idea, I struggled with the young lad's viewpoint and it felt a bit laboured, whereas the best YA offerings i find are fine for adults... Lacked the pace of her Damaria series.

Good book

yes