{"id":761,"date":"2020-06-25T14:19:11","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T20:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yourock.fyi\/?p=761"},"modified":"2020-08-14T01:10:06","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T07:10:06","slug":"review-soul-bound-to-a-dragon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/?p=761","title":{"rendered":"Review &#8211; Soul Bound to a Dragon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.authorkurt.com\/\">Kurtis Eckstein<\/a>&#8216;s books have been recommended to me a number of times, usually because of his series &#8220;Immortal Supers&#8221; (which starts with <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2Vj0qVT\">The Daily Struggles of an Immortal<\/a> for those interested.)  So when I saw he had written a book about a catgirl AND a dragon, and they were both in the same book together, I had to jump on it like it was a grasshopper, and I was a cat.  Not gonna lie, if we&#8217;re stretching this simile, or this metaphor (on the one hand, we&#8217;re discussing two things in an interesting way; on the other hand, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m really a cat) I&#8217;d knock this book so far off the ledge of whatever it was left on it&#8217;d shatter.  Ho boy, I have opinions on this book, and it may have tainted if or how I read other stories by the author.<\/p>\n<p><center><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\namzn_assoc_tracking_id = \"selcouth-20\";\namzn_assoc_ad_mode = \"manual\";\namzn_assoc_ad_type = \"smart\";\namzn_assoc_marketplace = \"amazon\";\namzn_assoc_region = \"US\";\namzn_assoc_design = \"enhanced_links\";\namzn_assoc_asins = \"B07K81S5V3\";\namzn_assoc_placement = \"adunit\";\namzn_assoc_linkid = \"52b6a8f917c95f87ce255ab4c8c21d27\";\n<\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"\/\/z-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/onejs?MarketPlace=US\"><\/script><br \/>Making a purchase from this affiliate link may benefit the website.<\/center><\/p>\n<p>The setup appears kind of straightforward.  Riella is a half-catgirl, half-person, and she grew up in a village of elves where nobody liked her because she was so pretty, but also a cat, so lusting after her would be zoophilia and the elves (mostly) aren&#8217;t about that.  She&#8217;s protected by a figure she knows as her godmother, who ensures she gets training in the martial arts, and also isn&#8217;t completely feed to the elves&#8217; disdain for anything that isn&#8217;t elvish.  On her 18th birthday, it&#8217;s time for her to get the fun times out of the village, so off she goes.  <\/p>\n<p>Her godmother gives her a magical summoning crystal, which she uses after a nasty fight against some other fur-people who are mysteriously hunting her, and she summons&#8230; A PERSON!  Not a dragon.  But spoilers &#8211; he&#8217;s a half-dragon named Eli, who can use three different types of magic and also has super chiseled abs and he&#8217;s a little annoyed he was summoned out of nowhere and interrupting his hunting but he didn&#8217;t have anything better going on so he decided to follow her.  He&#8217;ll fall in love with the main character at some point, which confuses the heck out of her because she&#8217;s not that pretty, <em>she&#8217;s not worth anything, just why would anyone love her<\/em>?<\/p><div class=\"a99d68d66f4793561dba35187d5f89e7\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block; text-align:center;\"\r\n     data-ad-layout=\"in-article\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-0579594856611480\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"5408359957\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>The book is, perhaps strangely, written in a style less like teenage romances targeted at women and more like an exceptionally stereotypical take on a woman by someone who had only read about them in teenage romance novels.  I wasn&#8217;t really a fan.  This dropped my enjoyment of the story to something of a middling desire to finish the book so I could move on to the next, but I trekked through.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, the main character and her dragon mate find themselves caught up in a world where slavery is legal, not everyone is what they seem to be, and magic can be infused with technology to create &#8220;Magitek.&#8221;  There was some promise there, and while some of the choices made by characters didn&#8217;t make the most sense I had no problem rolling with it.  Riella teams up with a family that runs a fur-abolitionist operation under the guise of legit traders who on occasion deal with actual fur slavery, and along the way make fast friends with a former slave who turns out to be THE BEST ICE MAGE IN OVER A CENTURY.  BUT SHE DIDN&#8217;T KNOW GUYS.  SO AMAZING.  But not that amazing, because what if Eli has feelings for her, a girl who is actually cute, and can give Eli anything he wants!  But he doesn&#8217;t want her.  And she also doesn&#8217;t want him.  She just wants good friends.  ELI AND REI 4 LYFE!<\/p>\n<p>I struggled to decide if this book was trying to be a high fantasy story of coming to terms with one&#8217;s past that happened to have romance tropes in it, or if it was just a Harlequin-esque romance novel set in a high fantasy setting.  Those struggles were thrown to the ground at around the 62% mark <em><strong>when the Goddess\/Demon\/Being trapped inside Riella hijacks Riella&#8217;s body in an attempt to get Riella raped and then killed.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t feel dark topics are off the table of discussion, at all.  I also don&#8217;t think the &#8220;solution&#8221; to such an event is &#8220;Welp, I guess we&#8217;ll have to handcuff you to the main male lead so you can&#8217;t do that again, lol!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I never did wash the taste of that scene and it&#8217;s handling out of my mouth, even as things picked up with the recruitment of a fourth potential party member\/ harem member (I don&#8217;t even know what genre this book is going for anymore) and the realization that there are some truly heinous influences in this world, between a disease ravaging the poor and the true nature of heinous &#8220;it&#8217;s okay they&#8217;re not people&#8221; slave trade.  There is a lot that could be explored here, and a very small part of me is curious where the story might go.<\/p>\n<p>But the story can go on without me, I feel like I did my due diligence in just finishing the damn thing.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kurtis Eckstein&#8216;s books have been recommended to me a number of times, usually because of his series &#8220;Immortal Supers&#8221; (which starts with The Daily Struggles of an Immortal for those interested.) So when I saw he had written a book about a catgirl AND a dragon, and they were both in the same book together, I had to jump on it like it was a grasshopper, and I was a cat. Not gonna lie, if we&#8217;re stretching this simile, or this metaphor (on the one hand, we&#8217;re discussing two things in an interesting way; on the other hand, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m really a cat) I&#8217;d knock this book so far off the ledge of whatever it was left on it&#8217;d shatter. Ho boy, I have opinions on this book, and it may have tainted if or how I read other stories by the author. Making a purchase from this affiliate link may benefit the website. The setup appears kind of straightforward. Riella is a half-catgirl, half-person, and she grew up in a village of elves where nobody liked her because she was so pretty, but also a cat, so lusting after her would be zoophilia and the elves (mostly) aren&#8217;t about that. She&#8217;s protected by a figure she knows as her godmother, who ensures she gets training in the martial arts, and also isn&#8217;t completely feed to the elves&#8217; disdain for anything that isn&#8217;t elvish. On her 18th birthday, it&#8217;s time for her to get the fun times out of the village, so off she goes. Her godmother gives her a magical summoning crystal, which she uses after a nasty fight against some other fur-people who are mysteriously hunting her, and she summons&#8230; A PERSON! Not a dragon. But spoilers &#8211; he&#8217;s a half-dragon named Eli, who can use three different types of magic and also has super chiseled abs and he&#8217;s a little annoyed he was summoned out of nowhere and interrupting his hunting but he didn&#8217;t have anything better going on so he decided to follow her. He&#8217;ll fall in love with the main character at some point, which confuses the heck out of her because she&#8217;s not that pretty, she&#8217;s not worth anything, just why would anyone love her? The book is, perhaps strangely, written in a style less like teenage romances targeted at women and more like an exceptionally stereotypical take on a woman by someone who had only read about them in teenage romance novels. I wasn&#8217;t really a fan. This dropped my enjoyment of the story to something of a middling desire to finish the book so I could move on to the next, but I trekked through. Along the way, the main character and her dragon mate find themselves caught up in a world where slavery is legal, not everyone is what they seem to be, and magic can be infused with technology to create &#8220;Magitek.&#8221; There was some promise there, and while some of the choices made by characters didn&#8217;t make the most sense I had no problem rolling with it. Riella teams up with a family that runs a fur-abolitionist operation under the guise of legit traders who on occasion deal with actual fur slavery, and along the way make fast friends with a former slave who turns out to be THE BEST ICE MAGE IN OVER A CENTURY. BUT SHE DIDN&#8217;T KNOW GUYS. SO AMAZING. But not that amazing, because what if Eli has feelings for her, a girl who is actually cute, and can give Eli anything he wants! But he doesn&#8217;t want her. And she also doesn&#8217;t want him. She just wants good friends. ELI AND REI 4 LYFE! I struggled to decide if this book was trying to be a high fantasy story of coming to terms with one&#8217;s past that happened to have romance tropes in it, or if it was just a Harlequin-esque romance novel set in a high fantasy setting. Those struggles were thrown to the ground at around the 62% mark when the Goddess\/Demon\/Being trapped inside Riella hijacks Riella&#8217;s body in an attempt to get Riella raped and then killed. I don&#8217;t feel dark topics are off the table of discussion, at all. I also don&#8217;t think the &#8220;solution&#8221; to such an event is &#8220;Welp, I guess we&#8217;ll have to handcuff you to the main male lead so you can&#8217;t do that again, lol!&#8221; I never did wash the taste of that scene and it&#8217;s handling out of my mouth, even as things picked up with the recruitment of a fourth potential party member\/ harem member (I don&#8217;t even know what genre this book is going for anymore) and the realization that there are some truly heinous influences in this world, between a disease ravaging the poor and the true nature of heinous &#8220;it&#8217;s okay they&#8217;re not people&#8221; slave trade. There is a lot that could be explored here, and a very small part of me is curious where the story might go. But the story can go on without me, I feel like I did my due diligence in just finishing the damn thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/soulbound_to_a_dragon.png","acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selcouth.fyi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}