Review: Dragonhaven

Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Three and a half stars. At first I was blown away by how different it was from all the other McKinley I've read; it's modern-day instead of fairytale and the protagonist is male! I felt a bit as though I had started reading a Percy Jackson novel, which is fine in its own way, but not at all what I'd been expecting. However, as the story progressed, I noticed familiar elements: the main character spent a lot of time in a state of muzzy-headed confusion, and much of what was going on was inexplicable and not fully described, leaving a strong impression of that sense of narrow focus and confusion. McKinley does that bit oh-so/too-well on a regular basis, and I tend to think of it as her slightly-annoying-but-eerily-evocative trademark. Once I twigged on that, it occurred to me that the speech pattern actually was the same one I'd noticed over and over in McKinley's fairytales, only the language was updated a bit.

True to a good McKinley read, it did suck me into its world and make me irritated when I had to leave it to attend to the rest of the universe. I would have liked a chance to explore the world a bit more, but probably the pace would have dragged if more time had been spent in explicit exploration, and I could tell that it was a choice to drop the reader into the middle of the action and have the narrator assume a common background which doesn't really exist, slowly filling in the gaps later. The technique hooked me in as it was meant to do, but it leaves a bit of an unsatisfied itch. Cool concept for the world.

I want to hear Eleanor's story, maybe in the form of her post-presidential memoirs. I'm done with Jake.



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Uncertainty

Because I live with depression, I never know what's coming next. That's true for everybody, but there's a wider range of likely scenarios for me than someone who doesn't have a mood disorder.
Someone who is neurotypical and feels irrationally angry at the world for a few days and notices a degree of lethargy which is preventing them from completing their planned activities might wonder if they're getting a cold or the flu. They might not even notice the impact it's having on their life, or they might attribute it to the extra work of keeping warm in the extreme cold of this winter. A week later, it will be forgotten.
When I feel myself filled with rage for no particular reason, and I end up in bed before 7pm two nights in a row, I get scared. Maybe it's just one of the reasons that would come to mind for anybody; it could be a transient illness, the weather, or the reaction to an unusual level of stress or extra work.
But maybe it's more. Maybe it's the start of a depressive episode and my life is about to fall apart, or - in the best case - get a lot harder.
Or maybe it is one of the "normal" reasons for feeling this way, but it's going to trigger an episode.
I have resources. I'm not alone. I've spent years and thousands of dollars working on understanding this problem, identifying its patterns and pitfalls, and learning what I can do to minimize damage. Maybe my actions will even prevent a full episode from developing.
Or maybe I'm just having a bad couple of days and all will be back to normal next week.
I never know. And that's the scary part.