Anyway. I haven't written a review of Seraphina yet (it was one of the books I read in December; if we're lucky maybe I'll do some kind of wrap-up but I'm considering kind of abandoning wrap-ups since they're not the most fun for me to write? I already haven't written one in yay these many moons) but I finished Shadow Scale a few days ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. So here we go: my first review of the year shall be the first book I read in 2025.
Publication Date: March 10, 2015
Read: December 30th - January 3rd
Format: Print/Audio
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
I think it’s interesting that this book is billed as a “companion” to Seraphina when it very much just is a sequel. I mean, I guess it could maaaybe stand alone, but I would never recommend skipping Seraphina to get to this one.
Overall, I think I enjoyed Shadow Scale somewhat more than Seraphina, although I liked Seraphina a lot. Seraphina’s arc is kind of a heroine’s journey where an isolated and closed off heroine slowly opens up and finds connection with people around her. It’s paced pretty slowly and the plot develops slowly enough that it can sometimes feel pretty light on plot. And the villain, while formidable, doesn’t appear very much in the actual story. More of the conflict throughout the book feels like it comes from the pull between Seraphina wanting to connect with people and having to lie to them to hide her half-dragon heritage.
In Shadow Scale, Seraphina is no longer obliged to lie about being half-dragon/ityasaari, because that cat is out of the bag. I think that was sort of a nice change, as it allowed us to explore other sorts of conflicts, both in Seraphina’s relationships with the other characters and within Seraphina herself. Seraphina is also traveling to try and gather other ityasaari to help the Goreddi war effort in the dragon civil war, so we get to see a lot more of the world that Rachel Hartman has built. I really enjoyed seeing more of the world (especially since different cultures have pretty different approaches to how they treat dragons and ityasaari) and meeting all of the ityasaari, many of whom were only hinted at or mentioned in passing in Seraphina.
I also think that Shadow Scale has a really stand out villain compared to Seraphina. Like I mentioned, Seraphina’s villain doesn’t get a lot of page time, and while they are executing a pretty longterm plan, they just don’t feel as uniquely threatening as Shadow Scale’s villain. Shadow Scale’s villain is fascinating. I’m reluctant to refer to them by name or give too many details, but I think they were a great example of a villain who is terrifyingly competent and formidable, but also someone who it’s hard not to want to sympathize with, at least to some degree. Maybe I’ll write a blog post of some kind just on the villain, because I have a lot of thoughts on them and on their thematic role in the story.
Speaking of the ityasaari again, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of diversity included in this book, considering it came out in 2015? I mean, 2015 wasn’t that long ago, but I feel like it was a time when LGBT characters in books was far from a guarantee. I do feel like it was more likely to have LGBT supporting characters later in a series, so I suppose Shadow Scale is in keeping with that. But anyway, one of the ityasaari that Seraphina meets is a trans woman, and she was definitely one of my favorite supporting characters (besides Abdo, who I loved ever so much).
I also thought it was cool that this character, Camba, was specifically given a storyline and backstory where her main struggle/backstory did not center around being trans. Seraphina actually assumes at one point that Camba’s previous mental health struggles (witnessed years prior through her involuntary visions) might have been a result of her being half dragon and/or trans, but she learns what actually happened and was like “Oh right, I should never assume I know why people are struggling.”
We didn’t see as much of our love interest Kiggs in this book, but it is a ~600 page book, so I think we still got a pretty decent amount of him (although towards the end…he made me mad. No further comment since I'm trying to keep things spoiler free). I still enjoyed his and Seraphina’s relationship. I already knew how the love triangle with the two of them and Glisselda would resolve, so there wasn’t as much tension for me on that front, but I liked their interactions. I liked their interactions because Rachel Hartman did a good job of showing their chemistry and how they can be a little more relaxed and jokey around each other, even in serious situations.
Ultimately, the scale of this story is much larger than the story that began in Seraphina, with more characters, more locations, and a much larger struggle taking place, both geopolitically and internally for the characters. I enjoyed it a lot, but I will note that this book is quite the tome (600 pages, as previously mentioned!). Because I was listening to the audiobook, there were times when I checked my progress and was surprised that I wasn’t further through the story. I ended up checking out a copy of the ebook from my library so that I could read certain sections more quickly out of impatience (I’m a 1.2x speed audio reader and a very fast print reader…alas!).
Compared to Seraphina, I think this book had me more hooked on the plot and what would happen because there is...just more plot? Seraphina has a coming-of-age arc and a lot of interpersonal conflicts as Seraphina gets caught in her own lies, so it was a story that I was able to enjoy at a slower pace slightly more easily. I wasn't reading to find out what would happen with the murder mystery/political intrigue, but to find out what the deal is with the people from Seraphina's visions, or to learn more about Seraphina herself.
With Shadow Scale, starting from around 30%, something happened that made me just really want to know what would happen next at every point. When I wasn’t reading the book, I was thinking about when I would have time to read more of the book. I would bring up the book to other people so that I could talk about the book and how I wanted to read more of it.
So, all that to say, that’s why I ended up doing print/audio for Shadow Scale when I just did audio for Seraphina.
I have already started reading the next book set in this world, Tess of the Road, and I’m liking it as well - although it's stressful in a totally different way from Shadow Scale. So far this series sits in kind of a similar space to the Graceling realm in my mind: YA fantasy with a classic feel and a strong focus on complex, sometimes messy female characters going through detailed and satisfying character arcs.
Also, the timing of me finally rereading Seraphina and continuing this series is kind of perfect, because I think there’s another book coming out later this year? I’ll have to decide whether I want to try and read it as an ARC after the Tess books or wait and do it as an audiobook like I’ve been doing for the rest of the books. I’m in an audiobook era at the moment, but it may end at any moment. I have fickle ears!
*I think I must have read this tidbit about Drachomachia being considered as the title on TV Tropes. I don't know how I ended up on the TV Tropes page for this series in the year of our lord 2025, but it was...interesting! TV Tropes is so interestingly of its time. And by that I mean, very dated in some of the ways it talks about things.
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