Review – Scorched by Mari Mancusi

   

Genre: Sci-Fi/Urban Fantasy

Hardcover – 352pgs

Published: September 2012 by Sourcebooks

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Rating: 3/5

 

Trinity
Don't leave me here... It starts with a whisper. At first Trinity thinks she's going crazy. It wouldn't be a big surprise—her grandpa firmly believes there's a genuine dragon egg in their dusty little West Texas town. But this voice is real, and it's begging for her protection. Even if no one else can hear it...

Connor
He's come from a future scorched by dragonfire. His mission: Find the girl. Destroy the egg. Save the world.

Caleb
He's everything his twin brother Connor hates: cocky, undisciplined, and obsessed with saving dragons.

Trinity has no idea which brother to believe. All she has to go by is the voice in her head—a dragon that won't be tamed.

Dragons are my favorite mythical creature and I do a respectable amount of fangirling over Dr. Who. So how could I resist a story that had time travel and dragons? I would pin this as Terminator with dragons. I saw someone compare it to Eragon too which is fairly accurate as well. Both descriptions had me itching to read this. After finishing the book though, I have mixed feelings. I have a lot of issues with this book, which I will explain below, but I also really liked it and had a hard time putting it down. 

The characters get a silver star from me. I like Trinity and the brothers, but I had a hard time connecting with Trinity. Connor and Caleb's point of views were too similar. It wasn't always easy to tell who was narrating their chapters. Even though their stances on dragons are different, I've started thinking of them as one unit since they use a lot of the same references and have so many of the the same experiences. The dragons get gold stars. They get gold fiery stars because I love them and their part in the story was great.

The story is a mix of fantasy/contemporary/sci-fi/paranormal and several other things mixed it. Normally I like mash up of genres. It makes things interesting and great combinations make great stories. In this case though, I think things are a little scattered. The action was really good and kept the story flowing, but sometimes the story moved onto a new topic when the other one didn't feel complete. There are a lot of elements to this story, which I liked, but they feel under developed, which I didn't.Mostly I had problems with the world building (or lack there of). I have a lot of questions about the inner working of this world, which isn't always a bad thing. However, in this case I think the questions are ones that should be explained. I'm hoping they will be in book two, but since a lot of the set up/timey wimey explanation happened in this book, my hopes are not high. 

An overall enjoyable reading which I will be picking up the sequel to soon. I'm interested to see what happens to Trinity and the dragons. 

Happy Reading!!