Title: City of Scales

Author: Ylemill 

Status: Unfinished

Sequel/Stand Alone: Stand Alone as far as I know

Plot: After an unfortunate event a young man by the name of Ryu is led across the ocean in search of an island no one has discovered before, an island of dragons. While there he learns many things about his family, his life, and about this world hidden from human eyes. 

What I thought: This story is hugely underrated. It has everything a good story needs. A compelling and interesting protagonist, interesting side characters, and an intensely frightening villain/s. It usually takes a lot for me to hate a character, but I was pretty close to doing so with this villain. 

The story itself is a third-person perspective told from the view of many different characters, but mainly Ryu.  He goes through quite a lot of character development in the first part and it is done rather well in my opinion. He's certainly not a perfect character, with his own struggles and battles to overcome, but he is a joy to read, and I look forward to seeing more from him.

What I think is the best part of this book so far though is how the author introduces their side characters. Many of these characters are given a lot of depth that isn't present in a lot of other stories, and even if the character is given only a chapter or two from their point of view, but by the end of that time you often feel connected to them already. Especially as someone who doesn't often like side tangents into other characters, this was a welcome experience. 

Another strength of this author is how well they are able to describe the more... unsightly things. The battles in this book are quite detailed, ravenous, and real. With dragons getting their guts opened up and wings ripped and blood all over them, so if you're not into that then I probably wouldn't recommend this, but the author does these things quite well. 

This story is a very character-driven story, with quite a lot of focus on the emotions and interactions between many of the characters rather than a grand scheme. But that works very well, and I look forward to seeing how part 2 pans out.