Eona

Eona by Alison Goodman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Now on the run and trying to uncover the secrets of the spirit dragons to help heal the Empire, Eona must decide who to trust - and who to love.

How Eona feels throughout the book:


How I felt:


Maybe I'm just too old for all this angsty sturm und drang. Eona has so many feelings. (A lot happens in this long book, but to me it felt slow because of all the exhausting emotional beats Eona hits.) Still learning to be comfortable in her true identity as a woman after spending years disguised as a boy, Eona also struggles to balance the demands of her incredible power with her loyalty to the Emperor.

She feels the dark draw of the pleasures of power, embodied in Lord Ito (gag me), who is as rapey, unrepentant and manipulative as ever. Still, she is drawn to him and able to be honest in ways she does not dare with Emperor Kyto - even though Kyto has given her a position of supreme authority and trust. Her Mirror Dragon may represent the virtue of Truth, but Eona can't seem to stop lying even to the people she loves most: and her every misstep places those around her in terrible danger.

For those who loved Eon, this book definitively concludes the duology and deals with the complex emotions of power, love, guilt, and desire. For me, it could have been shorter.