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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 3/5
Pages: 544
Started: 10 May 2023
Finished: 18 May 2023
Summary:
Eragon is a farmer's son, a clever boy with no prospects but that of following in his father's financially unstable agrarian footsteps. Then, one day while he is hunting for food in a purportedly haunted wood, he is nearly killed by a falling object, a large and mesmerizing blue stone. When he discovers that the stone is in fact one of the world's last dragon eggs, and that he is one of the unique few able to both hatch the egg and ride the dragon inside, Eragon is thrilled with his new secret. Then his father is killed in an attack orchestrated by the King's men attempting to hunt down his dragon, and Eragon is sucked into a vengeful chase. He quickly realizes that he may be no more than a farmer's son, but he is also a Rider, and his duty is to bring the kingdom to justice.
Thoughts:
This book is considered a YA fantasy classic for good reason. The world-building is complex, the plot is interesting, and the magic system feels just rich and imaginative enough without being overwhelming for a young reader. The settings were perfect imagination fodder, and Eragon's logical cleverness was satisfying to read.
However, I found the characters and the dialogue to be borderline torturous. Eragon has very little personality, as did the rest of the characters in the book. Saphira, the dragon, was female and slightly more vengeful than Eragon--those were the only personality traits that I could discern from 544 pages essentially about her. Similarly, there was so much potential for gender and age dynamics with Murtagh to add a layer of complexity to Eragon's feelings about himself and the world, yet the age gap was never mentioned. The dialogue was also lacking; it felt stilted and clumsy, especially Eragon's italicized thoughts to himself and the italicized thoughts that made up his communication with Saphira.
I did not hate this book, and I can see why it sparked so much imagination and wonder in a generation of kids. Perhaps my opinion on this book is also being slightly influenced by my general opinion that if your name isn't Tolkien, you shouldn't be writing about dragons. Either way, the dearth of complex character development and the weakness of the dialogue made this book rather uninteresting, and I don't think I will be continuing on in the series.