Review: Dragon Rider

Dragon Rider by Taran Matharu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I know a guy or two who loves some litRPG type material. I'm going to need to make sure this book is on their TBR piles, and everyone else's, because if you're not reading Taran Matharu as faithfully as I do, are you even a fantasy fan?

Here, Matharu shifts gears from the YA sphere where he spent the last decade or so into a decidedly more adult realm. Sure, protagonist Jai is still in his teens, but this book definitely ramps up the violence and language into R-rated territory, but that fits the pattern of Matharu's books being increasingly more mature in content with each new series.

It's got a lot of litRPG elements, especially once we get to meet the dragon Winter (it wouldn't be Matharu without an adorable reptile, would it?) and Jai has to worry about how much money is in his purse and how much mana is in his body. But the imperial power plays that Matharu sets up are some of the most compelling in the business, especially because much like Cade from his Contender series, Jai has to deal with a lot of casual racism from everyone around him, and some of these royal fools from Sabine, Dansk, etc. are gonna need to be taken down a few pegs by the time this book is ever.

Though it's pretty clear Matharu's looking at another trilogy here, and I'm ready to read each and every book that comes after this one.

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