Dragon’s Green by Scarlett Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dragon’s Green is a really intriguing book and one that I sort of thought I wouldn’t like and then really rather did. It reaches in a thousand different directions, some more successfully than others, and when it hits, it’s utterly wonderful.
So, a plot precis: Euphemia Truelove, pupil of a school for the Gifted And Strange, is set to inherit a very unusual library from her very unusual grandfather. And alongside that inheritence come problems of a very deep and dark nature that can only be solved with some friends, some magical boons, and a lot of bravery. It’s the first novel of a series and, perhaps even more praise-worthily, manages to deliver a self-contained story that doesn’t have one of those hideous ‘tune in next time’ cliff-hangers.
There’s a place for this sort of novel within children’s and young adult literature and I’m pleased that Thomas is filling it. I get asked quite a lot about books to read after Harry Potter and despite a lot of effort (again, some better than others), there’s never really been anything to fill that gap. Dragon’s Green inhabits that ‘next’ space really nicely and in doing so, delivers something that speaks to both Harry Potter but also to Diana Wynne Jones and Eva Ibbotson. And they’re not authors to invoke lightly, but Dragon’s Green, when it connects and when it hits its moments full on, invokes those connections and does it with spades.
I like this. I like the complexity of it, and I like how straightfoward Thomas is in delivering it and I love how much she trusts her characters to do the things that they need to do. It’s not a perfect novel. There’s a saggy middle which loses its way somewhat, and there’s a few moments which needed a bit of rereading in order to fully understand. But, even having said that (and it is something that definitely needs to be acknowledged) I didn’t stop reading this wonderfully distinct and convincing novel. I didn’t want to stop reading it at all. There’s the kernels of something very good here.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
Daisy May Johnson 
Ooh, interesting. Must look out for this when it comes out. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Scarlett Thomas (I’ve read a few of her books for adults). I like her style and ideas – I love The End of Mr Y as a concept, but as I find she is quite obsessed with sex, which annoys me, because it’s unnecessary. Tried reading The Seed Collectors and gave up, but as I said, I love TEOMY (apart from the sex bits). Also, sorry I haven’t yet written my post about the Chalet School scrapbook. We’re going through restructuring at work and other stuff so my brain has been too full of things for me to sit and write.
Not a problem re the guest post! Think of me when you can 🙂