The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.
Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed.
For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very …
The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.
Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed.
For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects.
Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.
Heartfelt characters, poignant analogy to colonial steamrolling of the first peoples
4 stars
Well done, an enjoyable read. Set in Victorian-era, but one with dragons who are bonded to humans. Classic bureaucracy, dragons and their dragoneers are regulated like driving cars. This clearly collides with an indigenous girl and her new dragon and the colonial occupiers who view her and her people as less-than-human savages.
I quite enjoyed this book but did find it slightly heavy on messaging about various political issues from LGBTQ to gender to patriarchy/matriarchy to environment to native rights. All of which I support but which did drag me out of the story slightly from time to time just with the frequency of their introduction and/or discussion.
Still well worth a read though. Sort of in the vein of a Harry Potter fantasy mixed with a story of resistance to cultural assimilation. And with interesting dragons and quite well done characters.
This is a good book! Going into it blind meant I wasn't expecting the discussions of racism towards indigenous peoples, but the narrative was eye-opening and thoroughly showed many aspects of the impacts of colonialism.
I liked the writing, the characters, and all of the fantasy elements introduced to the world. The LGBTQ+ and polyamory representation was also unexpected but brought me a lot of comfort and joy. Anequs is strong and confident and I love her and Kasaqua to pieces. :)
To Shape a Dragon's Breath is an indigenous-centered story about a young woman Anequs who finds a rare dragon egg and is chosen by the resulting dragon; to avoid harm to her Masquisit community and her dragon, she agrees to register her dragon and go to an Anglish dragon school, whereupon she's confronted with all the racism, colonialism, death threats, shitty teachers, classism, homophobia and unexplained Anglish social conventions that you might expect. The world here is adjacent to our own except with strong Nordic and Germanic influences in history and mythology, on top of dragon-based industrialization (with a chemical/magical dragon breath system). This all works for me to keep the world simultaneously familiar but also fresh.
The story is really driven by Anequs' personality. She has a clear sense of her own values (protect her dragon, community, and friends) and doesn't hesitate to call people on their shit, to …
To Shape a Dragon's Breath is an indigenous-centered story about a young woman Anequs who finds a rare dragon egg and is chosen by the resulting dragon; to avoid harm to her Masquisit community and her dragon, she agrees to register her dragon and go to an Anglish dragon school, whereupon she's confronted with all the racism, colonialism, death threats, shitty teachers, classism, homophobia and unexplained Anglish social conventions that you might expect. The world here is adjacent to our own except with strong Nordic and Germanic influences in history and mythology, on top of dragon-based industrialization (with a chemical/magical dragon breath system). This all works for me to keep the world simultaneously familiar but also fresh.
The story is really driven by Anequs' personality. She has a clear sense of her own values (protect her dragon, community, and friends) and doesn't hesitate to call people on their shit, to the dismay of "well-intentioned" teachers who are trying to show that she and her people can be "civilized". Despite plenty of pressure, she refuses the binary choices of assimilation and rebellion, and instead largely follows a path of her own values. The book feels at times adjacent to a comedy of manners, in its focus on Anequs trying to understand and navigate a bewildering set of unexplained Anglish social expectations.
I think the strength and weakness of this first book is that it is a school story at its heart. Despite an assassination attempt, the true climax of the book is overcoming an oppressive teacher's examination and gaining freedom to leave the school with a dragon for an extended period of time. It's also got a strong focus on friends, family, and school romances, although I'm not sure I would characterize this as a YA book.
Ultimately, I think the scope of this book was smaller than I expected it was going to be. Also, because of the nature of Anequs learning to survive an Anglish school, we see more of the Anglish world than we do of her own. Apart from a conflict between her father and her brother, her family and community seemed one-note positive and uncomplicated. This was only book one though, and there are many potential threads that this book can pick up going forward and I'm really looking forward to where this series goes from here.
