Review: Slayers

Slayers
C.J. Hill
400 pages (Paperback)
Square Fish



Blurb:

Dragons exist. They’re ferocious. And they’re smart: Before they were killed off by slayer-knights, they rendered a select group of eggs dormant, so their offspring would survive. Only a handful of people know about this, let alone believe it – these “Slayers” are descended from the original knights, and are now a diverse group of teens that includes Tori, a smart but spoiled senator’s daughter who didn’t sign up to save the world.

The dragon eggs have fallen into the wrong hands. The Slayers must work together to stop the eggs from hatching. They will fight; they will fall in love. But will they survive?


Review:

I received a copy of Slayers through Goodreads First Reads.


I wasn't sure what to expect as Slayers was the first book I've ever read about dragons, so I didn't have anything to compare it to. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I don't know if there are books a lot better or if dragons were finally done right in this book, but I can say that either way, I loved it.

I've heard of plenty of books about dragons of course. In most of which, they seem to be either glorified horses or poor misunderstood creatures that just want to be our friends. This, however, hasn't always made a whole lot of sense to me. I thought dragons were supposed to be merciless, killing monsters that caused all of the people from the village a few miles away to disappear. As Hill put it:

"Despite all the novels to the contrary, I'm pretty sure dragons wouldn't want to be our friends. Lions, tigers, and bears are all way cuter and cuddlier than dragons, and they don't think twice about eating people. Anything that is large and has fangs and claws - well, that's nature's way of telling you to run away quickly."

And I couldn't agree more. But since the dragons are out to get everyone in Slayers, that obviously means that someone's got to be out there stopping them, right? Right.

The Slayers were a unique cast of characters. They could be tough and ferocious when they needed to be, and they were always down with using their super cool powers, but they were also all semi-normal teenagers when they could be. I felt some of the secondary characters had awesome personalities, including Bess, Rosa, and Dr. B. Some of the things they did and the situations they got into were hilarious. The main character, Tori, also got herself shoved into a totally new world, but what I loved was that she didn't immediately accept it. She had the weight of the world dropped onto her shoulders and for a bit there, she actually reacted normally and tried to get away from it. I don't always see that as often as I'd expect to.

The story was told from two different view points, although they didn't alternate. Every time we got to see through the "villain's" eyes I kept hoping and hoping that I was wrong about who it was, but when I got to the end, I wasn't. However, there was a twist there, that changed things anyways.

My favorite part about the whole story was the camp, though. I only went to a few when I was younger before I got bored with them, but this one I would have stuck with. It was a really nice place for the whole thing to be based around and I loved that it seemed it was just that little secluded area in the whole world that knew the secrets kept there.

Overall, Slayers had a great world and some of the coolest characters. They were put into awesome situations and the ending of the book left me just waiting for the next one.

I give this book a hangover level of 5 out of 5.


This book is especially recommended to people who like Percy Jackson and books similar to it.