Book Review: Starlight (The Dragonian #5)

About the Book:
Title: Starlight (The Dragonian #5)
Author: Adrienne Woods
Pub. Date: March 28, 2016
Publisher: FireQuill Publishing
Pages: 671 
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Synopsis:

In the Fifth and final part of the Dragonian Series, eighteen-year-old Elena Watkins and her dragon, the Rubicon, need to find the missing ingredients in order to free her father from Etan.

But what could the missing ingredient be?

And will she be willing to sacrifice her life if they don't find it before time runs out?

Review:

This review is breaking my heart to write. I have been in love with this entire series since I first picked it up back in 2013. I have had a special place in my heart for all of these characters for so long (don't worry...I still do!!) but this finale was a let down in many ways. I actually considered not writing a review for this because I simply didn't want to write a review that wasn't raving over this book. However, I feel it's important to express my opinion on why I didn't like this book as much as the other 4 books in the series. 

At the heart of this novel, the story was very good. Yes, there were a lot of elements of this book that I didn't like, but I do want it be known that I did enjoy the book. I just didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as the previous novels. If you took out all of the elements that caused problems, this book would be about 200-300 pages shorter, and would be nonstop action--and if this happened--I would have rated this book probably 5 stars (or at least a 4). Unfortunately, that isn't what happened, and it left me feeling like this

My first complaint was the countless grammar/spelling errors in this book. I'm not kidding when I say that I think I found at least 1 glaring error on every page. I can deal with a couple errors here and there, but not to this extent. It got to a point where it was incredibly distracting and even made scenes confusing because of the words being used. I felt as if I was reading a first draft of the novel, rather than the final, published book. My next major complaint was the (extremely) pointless drama between Elena and Blake. This was my face for most of the scenes in this book

I would have been fine with a little back and forth, but literally 60% of this book is ridiculous drama that shouldn't exist at this point in Blake and Elena's story. The drama was unnecessary and was just a series of misunderstandings. I'm not sure why this direction was chosen for Blake and Elena, but it was neither wanted or needed. This drama led to this book dragging on and on, and made me lose a lot of interest in the actual story. But the biggest problem with all of this drama was that it distracted from the great romance that exists between Elena and Blake. All of their drama overshadowed the supposed "greatest love to ever exist" and it left me extremely disappointed. I was looking forward to Blake and Elena finally, FINALLY being together, and it just fell apart. 

The root of all of this drama though leads me to another problem. Who was the root of all this drama you ask? It was Elena. Don't get me wrong, Elena always had her moments, but she was always a very strong character. That basically went out the window in this novel, which is something I never thought I would say. She became extremely annoying and acted like a toddler for most of the story. She didn't want to listen to anyone, and god forbid anyone would try to actually talk some sense into her. Nope, Elena definitely wasn't having any of that. Ultimately, she became very immature in this book, and was not at all like the character I loved so much. 

As I said, when this book was focused on the actual plot, it was great. But these scenes were few and far between for a good chunk of this novel. The action was virtually non-existent until the end (when it should have been a huge part of the entire book), and even when the story reached its climax...well it fizzled out. There was action, but not what the action should have been. Moreover, I still had a lot of questions. Now these questions might be answered in the spin-off books she is doing (Moonbeam being the first of these, which focuses on Blake and Elena again if I'm remembering correctly). So, I'm still holding out hope that because she is currently writing this book, answers will be revealed in the future. 

Overall, I'm not sure what to say about this book because it truly let me down in many ways. I enjoyed it, but this was not what I was expecting of a finale for one of my favorite series--a series I recommend to everyone. I'm not giving up yet though, and have high hopes for Moonbeam!

Happy reading :)

~Cassie