Book Review: Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
A tale of dragons, slayed baby dragons, and a girl trying to find her place in a world hunting one of the creatures she loves most. Check out my full review of Dragonfruit below!
Book Information
Hanalei is unable to return home due her father stealing dragonfruit from the princess when Hanalei was a child to save her life. Dragonfruit is supposed to grant your deepest desire, but comes with dire consequences. When Hanalei gets better, her father dies and she begins protecting the very creatures that saved her life, but took her father’s.
When she accidentally ends up back home, though, and sees the princess’ son, Sam, her childhood best friend who is still searching for another dragonfruit for his mother, Hanalei has to find a way to warn him of the consequences of using dragonfruit before it’s too late.
Review | Heidi Dischler
Alright, this book was a LOT to digest. Not in a bad way, though. I think it was really well written (just wish it could’ve been a little longer with all of the world building that needed to be done). Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier is a book about dragons, and—here’s the really weird part—humans hunting dragon eggs to eat them for their magical powers (they call them dragonfruit). I think the main reason I had issues with this book was because of the obsession with eating baby dragons. Like, was I the only one who felt super bad for all of these dragon mothers who just have their babies slain for no reason except serious misfortune????
Anyway, despite how short this novel is for its idea, it was really well executed in my opinion. I never felt super confused about anything or even like there wasn’t enough detail put into things. In the beginning it was rough for a moment, but it typically always is with fantasy novels. I also really enjoyed the writing style and the two main characters: Sam and Hanalei. Of course, I loved Hanalei the most because she’s this badass heroine saving dragons and people and generally an overall good person. Sam and Hanalei’s relationship was also super cute as a friends-to-lovers sort of trope (this book is super clean, which I appreciate, so only wholesome feelings and actions involved).
Basically, for the duration of this novel, you follow Sam and Hanalei as they search for another dragonfruit to give to the queen, but Hanalei keeps sabotaging their efforts because of the severe consequences her father faced after taking a dragonfruit to save Hanalei. You get a lot of action, a lot quests, and a lot of dragon hunters who are basically the pirates of this world. I guessed a good bit of the ending, though, except for a few things that I’ll talk about in the spoilers. So, that was kind of upsetting that it was pretty predictable.
Spoilers ahead.
Alright, two things I knew for sure: they were not going to feed the princess a dragonfruit (gross, again, by the way, because who thought it was a good idea to just kill baby dragons??), and I knew that Sam’s cousin was the one who took the dragonfruit from the cave the very moment they mentioned it was gone.
Overall, I genuinely liked this book. I thought it was a really cool idea with awesome characters. I just wish it could have been a little longer to give us more exposition and world building. 3.5 out of 5 stars rounded up to 4 for social platforms.
Source: Personal Copy from Book of the Month
(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)
