Do you like the idea of dragons, translation, and rebellion? Do you love characters you just want to shake until they wake up? Then you have to read A Language of Dragons. This is a release that took me by storm and one I had to review for you all. Keep reading this book review of A Language of Dragons for my full thoughts.
Summary
Welcome to Bletchley Park… with dragons.
London, 1923. Dragons soar through the skies and protests erupt on the streets, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried. She’s going to follow the rules, get an internship studying dragon languages, and make sure her little sister never has to risk growing up Third Class. By midnight, Viv has started a civil war.
With her parents arrested and her sister missing, all the safety Viv has worked for is collapsing around her. So when a lifeline is offered in the form of a mysterious ‘job’, she grabs it. Arriving at Bletchley Park, Viv discovers that she has been recruited as a codebreaker helping the war effort – if she succeeds, she and her family can all go home again. If she doesn’t, they’ll all die.
At first Viv believes that her challenge, of discovering the secrets of a hidden dragon language, is doable. But the more she learns, the more she realises that the bubble she’s grown up in isn’t as safe as she thought, and eventually Viv must What war is she really fighting?
Book Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
A Language of Dragons is a book that I read and hollowed me out. It’s a story which hit me during a reading slump and made me want to keep reading. Beginning with an authors note about how even villains are the heroes of their own stories, A Language of Dragons asks us whether it’s too late to change. It’s a story about naming mistakes, making amends, and forgiving ourselves. This book deeply explores what we will do, what people we will sacrifice, to remain in the class we are, to linger in whatever safety we have even if it’s an illusion.
“Peace isn’t peace if it’s only given to some”
It takes a lot to break out of the comfortable cage we have because not only do we not know better, we’re conditioned to be afraid of what happens in the open. Societies that sweep privilege and money under the rug and pretend with talent and brilliance alone you’ll succeed. It’s a society which counts on the love we have for our family and loved ones, to exploit for a semblance of order. Good people who make mistakes, choices, we think will help us. Who don’t question the way the world works for us – as long as we continue to stand above others.
“To control languages, to control words, is to control what people know.”
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While reading, I was obsessed with A Language of Dragons. There’s this element of wanting to shake Vivian, to have her see the ways in which the illusions she holds up would never hold her up. That power only works when we have someone to hold it over. If you haven’t been seeing the ways language can be weaponized and how ‘necessary sacrifices’ during war never seem to return back to ‘normal’, then you have to open your eyes. A Language of Dragons straddles the line of infuriating and hopeful. Of characters who are flawed, who make mistakes, but who – even at the last stroke of midnight – might have the chance to make a different choice.
Find A Language of Dragons on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.